Thrown Out

It happened. I have been "removed" from the "Quilting for Fun" web ring. I do not measure up, folks. My dreams of being a quilting diva have been squashed. Once again I failed as able to function as the member of a group. Ah, I just looked out the door and the sun is still shining and the clouds are moving so.......think the earth is still spinning. I knew this was coming and took the icon off the blog several weeks ago so as not to disappoint folks who would come for quilting posts.

Let me say that the web rings are great for those who can follow rules, but I have discovered that making a quilt now and then is just a fraction of who I am as a person. What you see is what you get and this blog is proof of that.

Does this mean things will change........naw, I am who I am!

Remember the Families

I posted last year how I can name four generations of my family who have served in the military. This starts with great uncles in WW I, my Dad and father in law in WW II, a uncle in Korea, my great white hunter in Viet Nam and my oldest son served four years in the Navy. I am very proud of all of these men, luckily they all came home and moved on with their lives. Today is their day. Sadly, my great white hunter has to go to work but at this point, we are thankful for that job.

While these men gave much, I hope that when you remember their and other's service today and hopefully everyday, you will pause and remember the families these men left at home. I have been reading some blogs of Marine wives and know that some of these families are facing their third and fourth deployment. Babies are being born with Daddy not there, birthdays and holidays are missing that important person. Wives who are part of a two person team are running the show all alone. I have been there and it is no picnic. My sister in law and my son were born while their Dad's were overseas.

It is an added stress to the military man, serving his country and wondering if all is well at home. Think how hard it must be to leave their wives and small children, missing parts of their lives that are once in a life time things to go into a unknown war zone.

So, to those many families out there keeping the watch until the loved ones come home safely, you have my respect and my best wishes!!! To those now serving our country making it possible for us to live the life we live, my never ending thanks and respect come your way. Blessings for you all.

Some Progress at our House

I finished the quilt for my daughter's co-worker. It is pretty basic but I think will make a welcome gift with the addition of several burp cloths.



A few years ago, my great white hunter made me a rack for my rulers. Since then my collection has grown and I asked him if he could make me a longer one with a couple more grooves in it. This one just fits on top of the book shelf where I keep my quilting books. I will use the first one he made for the smaller odds and ends of rulers that I keep in a drawer. He did a wonderful job, he has a lot of pride in his woodworking, no short cuts on anything.



Here it is with the rulers in place. It is just sitting waiting for me to use one of them..........and waiting and waiting. You would think with all these great tools to work with, I would be pumping out the quilts. You would think............

Election Day 2008

I have read some very good posts on blogs today urging folks to vote. My great white hunter and I voted with a mail in ballot last week. It is much easier than standing in lines and easier to fill out your ballot. I, too, urge you to vote, so much depends on our vote this year.

The best post I read, in my most humble opinion, about election day was from Mary. I agree with her 100%. I did my duty and voted the best I knew how. I read and listened and then read some more. The only problem was there was no place to vote for "NONE OF THE ABOVE". Surely somewhere in this great and vast country of ours there is a honest man???? Or is it not the man but the political machine and the media that distort things so badly? Whatever, I pray that we, as a country, make the right choice on this one.

Forty two years ago tomorrow, my great white hunter and I loaded up into his dad's yellow and white Chevy pick up. He was wearing his AF uniform, I had a pretty suit I bought off the rack at J C Penney. We were off to find a Justice of the Peace to marry us. It would be the 4th before we would actually be man and wife and now that my mother is no longer with us, I will admit to that one! I was 19, he was 20. We had been dating since I was 15, although we had gone our own way more than once.

He had come home on leave to ask me to marry him and if I said yes, to marry me before he went back. This was 1966, he was in the AF and our country was at war. He was due for orders and there was a very good chance he would be going to "Nam". After a fifteen minute discussion about what I expected out of a husband, I, of course, said "YES!!!" The course for the rest of our life was set.

There was no time to plan a wedding. One problem was the fact that I was raised in the Catholic Church, the great white hunter in the Baptist. His parents had planned a vacation around his leave, thinking he would go see all the family with them. My family was not financially able to do anything for us, so we decided to buy our licence in town, then go else where to get married. One hitch was, that week there was a state wide meeting for the local Justice of the Peace. Everywhere we stopped told us the same story. "Come back next week." We finally stopped in a town where the lady working in the office took one look at the uniform and knew we were on a time limit. She called another near by town where there was a judge who could marry us. She told us that he hated to marry people, he was a divorce judge but that he also was a supporter of our military so he might just do it. He did, we had the local sheriff and a deputy for our witness. When it came time to pay the fee, he refused to take it, saying he would not benefit from doing something that might end up in his divorce court later on. (How I wish he could see how things turned out!)

We had a couple of days alone, then went on the family vacation with his parents. They dropped him off at his base in California and I went home to my family and my job. He did get orders and in Feb. came home to move me to Southern California. The "Nam" thing came a few years later.

He is my hero, my very best friend and my greatest support. He helps me pick out my quilt fabric when I am color challenged! If you ask him what his goal in life is, he will tell you, to make me happy. He has and does. The 42 years have not been without struggle and there were times when both of us felt like we wanted to leave. But every time, something positive happened that told us we needed to stay together. Would I do it again? You bet your boots I would, but this time I think I would like a wedding cake! LOL

Happy Anniversary to my great white hunter!

Halloween Memories

I have some great Halloween memories. When I was growing up, there were no store bought costumes. Sure some kids had fancy costumes that someone made but for the most part, you just put together what was around the house. Gypsy ladies were common as well as Cowboys and Cowgirls. I remember being a Gypsy more than once with a old skirt of my mom's, a scarf on my head and hoop earrings. I got to wear makeup and that made it all fine! It really didn't matter what you wore to go trick or treating because by the end of Oct. in the Colorado mountains, it was pretty cold and there was sometimes snow on the ground already. So you wore your coat/snowsuit over the costume anyway. Funny though, I remember lots of questions about what you were supposed to be???

There were a few years when we all went to a town costume party at the high school gym. I was pretty small when we did that, don't recall much about it, except going. I also don't remember much about school parties, I think we took costumes but that one has left the old brain. Trick or treating at our house was our street only! My mother had a pet peeve about kids who went all over town with pillow cases and got them full of candy. In her eyes, they were wild, unsupervised kids and we heard a lot about how awful that was. LOL Our neighbors all did something special for us so it made it OK. The lady next door made candied apples, across the street had the best homemade popcorn balls. One of the families on the street had their uncle living with them and he gave out QUARTERS to the kids he knew. I loved that, as it was money to go to the movie on SUNDAY afternoon.


Our give out was seven milk carton tops from a local dairy with a candy of some sort hooked to it. Every Sat. the movie theater had a morning movie, sponsored by a local dairy. You could see Roy Rogers and Dale Evens in black and white for the entrance fee of seven quart milk carton tops! My sisters and I drank milk but I was the only one at an age to go to the Sat. morning movie. My uncles drank a LOT of milk and my grandmother saved the carton tops all year. So we bundled them together and gave them out at Halloween. Apparently, a lot of families struggled to come up with enough box tops for all the kids to go so we were a very popular stop on the Trick or Treat circuit.

When I was in high school, we paired up and went trick or treating for UNICEF. We collected money house to house and then ended the night with a dance at the Labor Center. What I remember the most about that is freezing feet! By the time you got to the dance, all you really wanted to do was go home and get warmed up!

When my own kids were old enough to enjoy Halloween, there are memories of school carnivals in Texas, with cake walks and games that we enjoyed so much. In Illinois, one year we had a large crop of small pumpkins in our garden. The kids and I loaded them up in a big red wagon and went for a walk. Every house we knew had kids in it, got presented with a small pumpkin. It was so much fun on Halloween, going trick or treating (again with winter coats and mittens) to see our pumpkins on display at the houses.

We try to have a special treat for the kids on our street to keep up the tradition of my childhood. Not homemade sadly, as those days are gone, but something bigger than what the other hand out might be. The past few years, we have had a family dinner of Mexican food before the grands go out to trick or treat. I stay at my daughters and hand out candy. So no one is home at our house. Julia and Colin will distribute the treats to the houses before we leave for their house. This is what we have this year.


Here are the great pumpkins that the kids painted last weekend. They will carve jack o lanterns with their dad on Thursday but this was an activity at Nana/Papa's that we try to do every year. If you carve your pumpkin too early here, you have a shriveled up, moldy pumpkin on Halloween. It is in the low 90's here during the day still and that is not a good temperature for carved pumpkins.


Julia did this one completely on her own.........his name is "Spoty". According to what she wrote, "Spoty is deadly!"




In spite of our making sure he watches nothing on TV of a violent nature, our Colin is a boy. Halloween to him means "scary" and "spooky". So we have a somewhat scary pumpkin with blood coming out of his eyes. He had some help lining up the eyes so they were even but for the most part, he did this on his own too! I love them!



I hope this brings to mind Halloween memories for all of you! If you don't have some good ones..........go make some!!!!

Cinnamon Twists

We are all feeling such a pinch at the grocery store these days that stretching our food $$ is a real challenge. With everything costing so much, it is hard to provide your family with special treats now and then. I have been thinking about things I made when my kids were growing up and we lived on one income, so I could be a stay at home Mom.

These are super simple to make as well as really good and inexpensive. I made them with Julia and Colin last Sat. morning. They start with a can of biscuits. I used the Pillsbury Grands Home Style but when I did it with my kids many years ago, we just used the store brand of biscuits because one can was never enough. I was amazed at the different varieties of canned biscuits they have now. The store brand was packaged in bundles of four cans and that was more than I wanted. You just need to make sure you don't get the ones that are layered as you roll each biscuit into a long roll. (it takes some pulling but the little ones can do this). Then you roll the biscuit roll in melted butter or margarine and then roll it in a mixture of cinnamon sugar until it is coated well. Take both ends and tie it into a knot. Place on a cookie sheet and bake at the temperature given on the biscuit can. You now have a special breakfast that costs very little and makes everyone happy!

32!!!

I do think I could have hand quilted a nice sized table topper in the time it took me to blanket stitch around 32 burp cloths. The stitching really adds to them and takes them from a double piece of flannel sewn together to something nice.

So, I stitched away, having visions of a sweet baby on some one's shoulder with their tiny head resting on soft colorful flannel. I stopped the vision right there because we all know what often happens when a baby burps. Didn't want to think about what these are meant to catch! Anyway, Julia got to choose first for her teacher's twins, then the Mama picked out hers for the coworker gift and then we picked out six for the friends baby. That leaves our nephew's baby that no one has taken the time to let us know if it is a boy or girl. Then my sister tells me that her son is expecting in May........so the stitching may go on and on. It is not in the AZ water folks, only three of these babies are local, one will be born in Portland, OR, one in CA and the other one in CO. The three local are folks I don't even know so I won't see the babies that use the burp cloths. Guess it is back to my vision of the sweet baby on someone's shoulder..............

I have fleece for a blanket for the friend's baby that I will hand blanket stitch around, the baby quilt to finish and two double flannel, no batting blankets to stitch for the teacher's babies. Good thing I like to do the blanket stitch.

Elk 2 My great white hunters 0

The title tells the story. My great white hunters came home empty handed, well unless you count the mud that was on everything. It was cold and wet in Colorado but not cold enough to drive the elk out of the timber. They didn't see one or hear any shots. So, I am shopping the sales for meat to fill my nice clean defrosted freezer. Maybe next year..............

They were home a few days early so my great white hunter still had some vacation days left. He and I headed out for our favorite spot again, in the White Mountains. Just as we drive three hours to see and play in snow in the winter, we drive that same route to see autumn leaves. If you have ever lived where there are four seasons, you feel the need to at least experience fall and winter for a day every year. The leaves are not near as pretty this year as they have been in the past. We had a wet summer and that might explain it, plus it is still pretty warm for this time of year even in the higher elevations.

These pictures are taken just outside the road to the ski resort. There are big clumps of aspen trees all around this area.

Mail Box Treasures

I have been so lucky on the blog giveaways. When I do win something, it is a shock because I never win things! So each and every package that arrives in my mail box is such a thrill. The fact that people do this for complete strangers just amazes my family. They get excited when something comes my way in the mail.

Here is my wonderful crocheted rag strip bag from Granny Lyn. She and I were both learning about rag rugs from Finn's blog. She knows more about the crochet process than I do, she made up her own pattern to make bags out of the strips. This one is one of two that she had in her give away. She even sent me balls of strips so I could try to make my own! She is a good blogger friend and I am so honored to have one of her bags.



Here is my prize from the Fall Into Fall giveaway that many bloggers took part in last week. It arrived in the mail today. Don't you just love those little salt and pepper scarecrows? They really caught my eye when I was browsing the many blogs taking part in the give away. The fat quarters are batik and I love that. Some day, I am going to figure out what to do with the batik I am collecting here and there. The purse patten looks simple enough that a non-sewer (me) can figure it out and it is just in time for some Christmas gifts that I want to make. These treasures came from Tango.

Many thanks go out to these great ladies for making my days a lot more interesting!