I read a blog this morning about having a place of your own. Finn had her spot on her tiny patio.
She is right, Dh and I have struggled our entire 40 years over "equal" space in our shared space.
This starts with closet and drawer space and moves on to space in the garage, book shelves..............you get the picture. I think the struggle comes from childhood where neither one of us really had our own space growing up. In both our families, just having a bed to sleep in was a blessing. We have worked it out though, not always quietly but in our marriage there is lighting and then there is thunder.................and I would never give up that lighting!

It made me think about how I need my own "time" as well as space. In the years when there were three children to make demands on every minute, we both had little time to call ours. Now that retirement is fast coming up on the horizon, I am wondering how having time to ourselves is going to work. We have always made sure that when he was home, so was I and we were a team. When he went to work, I had my time or we worked out that we would both do our thing at the same time. So, not sure I am ready for a 24/7 husband no matter how much I love being with him. Really not sure he is ready for a 24/7 wife either.

Funny how each stage of life has its different challenges. I am sure there are singles and widows out there that would tell me they would gladly give up "their" time to not be alone. I am sure I would feel that way too if that was where I was in my life, but you can't live your life by what someone else feels. We will need to work on what works best for us.................just like the constant struggle to have equal space on OUR space.

Gratitudes:

That for over 40 years we have been together in the same space

Hopefully continued good health for this time of our life

LIGHTING!

Its My First Birthday

Here I am when I first came to live here. Look at me on the side bar, think I am all grown up now.

Today I am one year old, and would you believe they didn't have a party, get me a cake or even a present...........and I am the PRINCESS that give this place class! I cuddle when I want to cuddle, I let you pet me when I want to be petted and still no birthday celebration. What is a cat (who can put Paris Hilton to shame with her poses) to do?

Stitched With Love by Jim Shore

I have never seen anyone mention the quilting figures by Heartwood Creek done by Jim Shore. That surprises me because I have purchased some of mine at quilt shows.

I really did not want to start another collection! At my age collections have taken over my life and angels were really not something I was interested in. A few Christmas's ago, I received one as a gift. They said when they saw her quilted skirt, it reminded them of me. So, as time has gone on I have added a few more. I don't care for all of the things he does so only buy the ones that "talk to me". LOL I have two Santa's that I put out at Christmas.

This one was my Mother's Day gift from my DD and her family. She has a needle sticking out of her hand and it is attached to the quilt with a real piece of thread.

I love the way he works several different quilt patterns into each figure. They have gentle expressions on their charming faces.

I will share more later.

Gratitudes:

Family that knows me well

vacation in THREE days

lovely things to dust!

My "ART"

Beings not much quilting is going on here ( I have "quilter's block" or a case of the just not with it lately), here is a picture of the quilt I made for number two son and his wife for Christmas. This is not my style at all but I was so drawn to so many of the bright colors and kept buying them so this is the result. About a half way through, I realized that it was meant for them. They have painted the walls in their house bright colors, she wears bright colors and both are very artistic (she did the table below). The greatest thing was what my son said about it on Christmas day. He referred to it as "a piece of art."

Now I am a frustrated artist..............as in NO artistic talent. I see art in my head but can't get it out in any medium. Give me a pattern that someone else put down on paper and I am ok. I struggle with colors for my quilts until my hubby takes me by the hand and picks the fabric out for me. This one was all mine and for my very artistic graphic artist son to call it "art" was a great compliment indeed.

Its me!

Go to the links on my sidebar and click on Sliding Through Life..........she has a great thing on her blog about Grandma being swallowed by the computer! Now, after my trials this last week getting things on the blog that have html code...........I saw myself sitting right there! LOL Thanks Rachel for the chuckle.

Now need to figure out how to get a link in the posts! Maybe tomorrow.......................

Too, when I looked at my weather pixie, it said 104 degrees in the Valley of the Sun. She LIES! It is 110 degrees plus and is going to be that all this week and through the weekend. So don't listen to her, she is like all weather people, she really doesn't have a clue.

Gratitudes:

Air conditioning

swimming pool

and did I mention air conditioning? LOL

Wonder of wonders!

This sure dosen't happen to me often as my problem is usually too much to say about too much. However, I find myself with nothing much to write about. I mean I could tell you about the laundry I washed and the dinner I cooked..............but why? So I will save my words for when I have something of interest.

Talented DIL

When we replaced our round table with a rectangle one after the grandkids came along, my son said they would take our old table and chairs. I saw the look on his wife's face and she was not exactly happy with the idea. Her taste is way more contempory and I understood. Later she said "we might paint it??" and I told her to go for it and do whatever she needed to do.

So here is the result! It took her many long hours and lots of hunting to find the glass but this picture doesn't even scratch the surface of how beautiful it is. She told me they were going to paint the chairs and I told her I would take the chairs to Goodwill and buy some that complimented the wonderful table..............got to tell you that got a big smile!

Nice to see a hand me down not my style get a whole new life as a work of art!

Wheeeeee!

I just added the counter..................I may be slow but boy once I do get it down, look out! Thank you again Swooze!!

WOW!

Now I want you to take a look............there is a Quilt 4 Pleasure on my blog! It has taken WEEKS for me to figure out how to get it there but with the help of a very nice lady.......WOOHOO, we did it. (no way could I say I did it because if she hadn't been VERY patient and nice to this old lady it would not be there). So to Suzette, I send my biggest thanks for helping and most of all for not letting me give up.

I thought long and hard about joining a web ring. As I said, I am not a joiner, have never been one and for the most part when I do join, I am miserable. But I liked what this one stood for. Just the title, Quilt 4 PLEASURE appealed to me. They don't have limits on how much fabric they buy, they use or don't use patterns................its all just for enjoyment. That is what my quilting is for me. I don't follow all the rules and I am not a great craftsman by any means but I spend every spare minute with some area be it reading quilting blogs, looking at websites or even sometimes with thread and needle. I did not think, however, that joining would tax my fuzzy brain quite as much as it did but learned a lot about html and such in the process.

So if you are a member of the ring, welcome. If you are not, please continue to stop by and say hello.

Lets see, it took a long time to learn how to add pictures to the blog, then adding links took quite a while, adding the webring took forever! So, now I am ready to try and add the counter thingie................ya'all wish me luck!

Gratitudes:

Great quilters who are willing to help in all ways

That I am still able to have a "light bulb" moment when it all comes together

Left over pork roast

The fuzzy ball that lays on the desk and supports my efforts if I just pet her now and then.

Adrift

Have you ever felt like you were just out there floating around with no purpose or no destination? Well, that has described my day. Have so many things I could be doing that would be very productive, and I am just out there with no anchor or map. Think it might be our triple digit heat or age creeping up on me but I sure hope I have motivation tomorrow! A person could get really lost at sea and never heard from again if they have many days like this one in a row!

So, if I don't surface in a day or two, call out the AZ coast guard..........or maybe it is the border patrol I would need to reel me in beings we are a ways from real water.

Gratitudes:

I have days to waste even though it is a shame

I put the pork roast in the crock pot YESTERDAY so we did have dinner

Air conditioning!!!

I think I need to get with it!

I made this top about a year ago with no one in mind to give it to. I just fell head over heels in love with the bears and HAD to do them. So I stuck it back until a few months ago when my next door neighbor told me she was expecting in July. Great, I would finish the bears for our gift. Dug it out, sandwiched it and basted HALF of it. Then, don't know what happened but I moved on to something else as is my pattern, forgetting the bears and Sandy's July due date.

Yesterday she was out front when I was leaving and I got a side view.............and I think that little one is almost ready for the bear quilt! So, got to get my act together and get busy here!

This is from a book I bought at Half Priced books called "Playful Patchwork Projects" by Kari Pearson and Friends. It has the greatest bug quilt that I plan to do someday soon.............yeah, if I live long enough!

Things I would do different...................NOT put the red checks as borders! My strips were straight, my sewing is straight but the print on the fabric was NOT STRAIGHT. Of course, I didn't really notice this until I was basting the thing. So I am discovering that each and every project has a lesson in it and that is how we grow and learn as quilters, I guess. I don't think the baby with notice and Mom is going to be so busy with number three, I don't think she will either??? (hopefully, no one in the family is a master quilter!)

Its crazy!

Here in the desert Southwest we are having our usual over 100 degree temps. It was 110 yesterday I think. We survive by wearing as few clothes as legally possible and making sure they are as light weight as possible.

So, on June 18, when we still have July and August summer heat plus Sept. and Oct. fall heat to suffer through, what are all the dept. stores doing? They are clearancing their SUMMER clothes and restocking with FALL ones! DD and I were shopping yesterday in one store where the clerks were so busy moving the light weight things to sale racks and the heavier weight to the main displays that we had to go ask them to ring up our purchase.

Question is, what do you do come mid July and you find you need a nice SUMMER outfit to wear for a special unplanned occasion and all the stores have is WINTER clothes? I thimk you might be out of luck!

Directions

Click on Niki's Ventures in my links list for the link to the crayon roll directions. Thanks Niki!

One done, one to go

Niki found the instructions for these and posted them on her blog. The grands are going on a week long vacation next week and will be in the car for several hours every other day or so. I just had to make them each one, being the good Nana that I try to be! It went well although it is supposed to hold 16 crayons, I could only get 15 in mine. Now the kids won't notice but the next one I do, I will add another inch to the length of the pieces. Its a learning process. Plan to make several of these for Christmas.

Full Circle

For over 15 years, I was an instructional assistant for a local school district. It was a great part time job for me, allowed me to be home when my husband and kids were but gave me some thing to do outside that. I learned a lot, made some life long friends and enjoyed what I did a great deal. I have always been a "kid" person and this was just a great extension of that.

For the first few years of that time, I worked in a class room with first graders who weren't quite ready to be in first grade. They were too far along to re do kindergarten but needed more help. Then I move on to having groups of first graders from several classrooms that needed extra help. We did flash cards and phonics, took turns reading and worked on writing. I really enjoyed helping and seeing them learn and progress. I lived for those light bulb moments when a concept you had been working and working on all of a sudden clicked. The looks on their faces when they discovered they could read after all were wonderful.

I quit to stay home with my first grand baby when my daughter went back to work. We decided we wanted her where she was loved and not a source of income. Now I know not everyone has this option but we did and it seemed the best thing to do. It worked well. For a period of time my husband was out of work and home with the two of us. He became a big part of the whole thing. When he did find work, it was working a second and sometimes third shift, so he was here for both her and her brother when he came along. The relationship he has with the two grandchildren is something that most men can only dream about because work hours wouldn't allow them to have the time with the kids he has had.

She is now 6 and her brother is 4. She will go off to first grade in the fall and he is enrolled in a pre school at her school so they won't be part of our everyday life anymore. It's going to seem odd not to have them here every weekday but it is time for us to move on. He can retire next year and we have plans. It is time for "our" time.

Today, at story time, my grand daughter read to ME. I have come full circle, from my great aunt reading to me, to learning to read myself and developing a life long love of reading and books that I passed on to my own children by reading to them. Then, I spent the time in between my children and their children helping other children read and hopefully passing on that love, to having my grand child share books with me and finally READING TO ME.

I have been truly blessed in more ways than one.

Gratitudes:

A rather large children's book collection to share

A loving grandpa for my grandchildren

Being a rather large, important part in the lives of my two grandchildren

Someday..................

Here is what I was working on about two weeks ago. It was going really well but somehow I have gotten away from it and having a really hard time getting back to it. Its a Patrick Lose pattern that I got off the Timeless Treasures website. He has his own fabric line to go with it but this isn't it. There are several other colors and it goes in a graduated row. I wanted to see if I could match his colors with my own................a lesson in color and texture. So hopefully I will get back there soon. I need to redo the orange blocks (not shown) because they are too light and just don't hold up well with the other colors. Then I need to buy the yellow fabric because anything I have is just a little too light or a little too intense. Just need to get up off my duff and do it!!! (of course I need to clean in the sewing/spare room first so I can find the machine!)

Gratitudes:

A cool morning so the kids and I could go to the park and have our breakfast.

A dividend check from the insurance company that was unexpected

sugar free Life Savers

Fresh From the Field

Today we stopped by a corn field and bought four dozen ears of fresh picked corn on the cob. It is so good and sweet, tastes just like candy.

Last week we went to a neighboring farming town and got a box of potatoes from the potato processing plant there. They are really good and the price is right! They come in a GREEN GIANT brand box so look for them at your local market for a much higher price.

Hopefully I can get this corn frozen and on to some quilting soon.

Gratitudes:

Grand daughter who gobbled her corn on the cob like it was a ice cream cone and then, asked for more.

Hubby who likes to eat as much as I do

The few fields of corn and potatoes plus citrus and peach orchards that are left in our area. The are fast losing out to housing developments, apartment houses and strip malls not to mention WAL-MART stores

In My Past Life,

I think I must have been a farmer or a "gatherer". (a squirrel is another possibility!) If I was a farmer, I doubt I was a very good one because hard physical work has never been my thing! I do love the aspect of "bringing in the crops" so to speak or "stocking the larder". There is something about this time of year that brings that trait out in me big time.

I find myself buying meat on sale for the freezer, making crock pot meals ahead to freeze. I love to pick fruit at the "U-Pick" and make jam and get corn fresh from the field for the freezer. The more I stock up, the more content I am.

A couple of years ago when I was in my "stocking up" phase, my daughter laughingly asked if I thought I might be pregnant?? Being in my late 50's and without reproductive plumbing for many years, I just laughed. She said I was "nesting". You know, gathering all my food and special things all around me. She said I reminded her of little bird who had eggs in her nest that she had to provide for.

I think a fabric "stash" has the same theme..........got to save it for when you can't get it! (as if Joann's wasn't just down the road from my house!) I tell my husband that all that fabric, rulers, books, thread, patterns that I have collected is for our retirement when we might not have as much extra money for those things. Do I have to tell you what a chuckle he has with that one?

So here are the fruits of my labor, so to speak. LOL We are swimming in grape tomatoes! This is one days crop with a lot more to go. Think for a house of two, we kind of over planted. In Az though, you never know if you will get any crop so you plan for extra just in case.




Cherry jam ready for the cupboard and the LONG rough winter ahead! This is kind of sad because with diabetes I can no longer eat this high sugar treat, but DH and the family can so I can still use that summer fruit. I made peach in May and will do some plum later on if they are good in the store. We pick the peaches locally so that really makes it my "crop". We will pick apples in Wickenburg in the fall and I will make applesauce for the freezer. Have a new recipe for that using Splenda so maybe I can have some!!

Gratitudes:

Lots of good fruit

Meat on sale this week

My new Food Saver sealer so I can package and freeze my bounty

Friends adding comments to this blog.........thanks everyone!

After reading how Finn felt that she really didn't want to be a Maverick quilter anymore, and Nancy has decided that she really doesn't need to impose all the Stashbusting rules in her life, it made me think.

What is it that we humans have about joining things? Why do we feel we need to be part of a group to find personal fullfillment in life? I have got to say I have no answers but it sure seems that we have that need, sometimes doing so even though it causes more unhappy feelings than good.

Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against forming a group of common interest but I have seen so many get started with the best intentions and then go downhill from there. Friendship is one of the most wonderful gifts we have but why does it so often have to EXPAND into something organized and therefore, with RULES!

Never have been much of a joiner, perferring to have lots of interest in lots of things. This goes back to my childhood. Things at my house were not the Father Knows Best family of the 60's. Joining into things at school or outside was hard to keep up with because there was no support that a child needed to be part of certain activities. So, for the most part, I didn't get to do those things. I wonder, did that form who I am now? I find I am a person, who as much as I want to be part of things, find that I either don't fit well or in the end when I give it thought, decide that hey, don't want to be part of this.

I love people, I love to talk to them and see their projects and be part of their lives but on my terms for the most part and that doesn't work well with in a group structure. So I guess I will just rattle around out here, hope to make friends and if I find a group that isn't too restrictive, where I can contribute as well as benefit, guess I will give it a try. No Stashbusting rules though as my Stash is meant to grow, as is my pile of UFO's. No child is going hungry when I buy fabric, no one is missing out on something they need because I started a new project without finishing a old one. I am trying to finish two for every one I start but that is a personal goal., not one set by group. And, as I told Nancy..........If it makes me HAPPY, that is the only rule I am worried about when it comes to my fun times.

Nice folks after all

I have had great offers of help so this webring thing may happen after all. I was right all along that quilter/crafter folks are the most helpful, generous group going.

Not much quilting going on here. Maybe too much computer time??? I still have the grandkids while Mom works but she will be finishing up next week and then there will be a five week or so break. They will go on vacation and then we are going, so it will go fast. Then the kids will be here a couple of weeks before school starts and then thats it, Nana is retiring except to have Bubba on Wed. when there is no pre school class. I will miss them after almost seven years but the time has come.

Hopefully lots of quilting will be the result!

I plan to sit down with the light box tonight and do some raw edged applique for some Christmas things. That will give me some hand work to work on also. I have several ART TO HEART patterns by Nancy Halvorsen that I bought at the quilt show in Tucson that I plan to do. Her stuff is so great!

Gratitudes:

helpful folks out there in cyberland

kisses and hugs from the grandkids

grapes and cherries are in season!

The sunflower

Just to make you smile!

UNCLE

I do give up..............as much as I would like to be part of the blogging community and join the Quilt4Pleasure webring, I just can't seem to make it work. My pleas for help have been ignored and I think that in itself says maybe this is not the great community that I thought it was. Think I am maybe trying to get in on something that is too well established to include newcomers.

So, I will blog on my own, for my own enjoyment and hopefully somewhere in here find a place that is comfortable.

Well, what do you know?

I have a COMMENT! Thanks Katie for the encouragement!

Still trying

I am computer challenged! Just when I think maybe I have it going, I seem to hit another wall. I tried to join a web ring and I got instructions to do things that did NOT make sense. Had questions and no where to get answers. Hopefully some one will help.

When I first got on the internet, I was so out of it, I did good to get the computer on and signed in. DH bought me a book about AOL to help (sort of a AOL for Dummies type thing only not so upscale). I sat in front of the computer for hours with that book and learned a lot by trial and error. Then I joined a Craft Magazine chat room and the ladies there patiently walked me through a lot of things so I could move around the internet. More trial and error and I can pretty much go where I want to go. The problem is doing some things after I get there, like add pictures to the header of my blog or join a blog ring. OK folks, so all of us out there aren't computer whizzing around and understand all the lingo.

Anyway, I must say that I find there aren't folks out there willing to help you much either. I have asked for help from a couple and my emails were ignored. Mary was great help with the HeartStrings and questions about the header......................and look folks, got the Heartstrings logo on here! So if you by any chance are reading this..............and I doubt anyone is and how would I know anyway..................help those who need it when you can. To anyone out there who might need help that I can give.............hey, just ask and it is yours!

Norma

Gratitudes for today

Great weekend with my family

my computer and internet access