Thursday, April 23, 2009

a nice vacation it's been

Well, technically it still is vacation. But tomorrow is Friday, and after that it's just regular time off, so for all intents and purposes it's almost over. But I won't dwell on that.

Nolene and I made the journey to Arkansas to see sister Sue and her family. All are doing well, and I'm glad to say Troy gave me a few plants to bring home. I've got about half the mums in the ground and the flags too (I don't know if there's a "proper" name for them, but I think they remind me of an iris). Some of the flags were from Troy's garden, the others were growing untended out by the trees and wanted to come home with me. There's something about getting transplants from friends and family...it's like you're bringing a bit of them home with you.


Nolene has some canna's that were originally from my house in Burleson. I hope to get a few from her in the next few days or so. First I have to prepare for them, but I'm making progress.

Today I worked on preparing a bed for some marigolds and daisies. It's coming along nicely, and they're in the ground, but I didn't get a pic. Maybe another time.

On our trip, Nolene and I did some geocaching. For those not in the know, it's a form of "treasure hunting" using a GPS. We found 10 caches, and we each picked up a travel bug to continue on their journeys. It's always fun to track down the coordinates, and see the clever way people hide their caches. One was attached with something like a c-clamp underneath a bleacher at a rodeo site. One was in the cap of a chainlink fence, and another was in a pvc pipe. Always interesting, and usually a challenge. I especially like the ones that are around cemeteries. It's nice to visit these sites that are kind of off the beaten path, and would have very few visitors without this reason to come to it. By the way, it's all very respectful and this particular cache was hidden outside of the fenced in area.

The travel bugs are items that cachers attach a numbered tag to, and place them in caches to be picked up and moved around the country and world. The one I got is called "Sew Me the World", and it has the tag along with a metal bobbin on a chain. I took a picture of it with my leaves in the wind wip (work in progress, also known as ufo...unfinished object), and posted it for the owner of the tag to see. I've put out a travel bug that's called Quilter's Omnigrid...the 2" omnigrid square, and I'm hoping that people will log pictures of it with their quilts. If you click on the picture, you should be able to see the travel bug in the center.

By the way, the quilt above will have a "Mr. Wind" face up in the upper left corner blowing air through the leaves.

Ok, that's it for now. Catch you later, and hopefully I won't be whining about going back to work. After all, I've only got 11 months and one week till I retire! But who's counting?

Saturday, April 18, 2009

attacking another ufo



I came across this quilt many years ago on a guild's website and really liked it, even bought raffle tickets on it. Didn't win the raffle, but I did decide I'd give it a try. My version will be a smaller wallhanging.


After a few years, I actually got to this point of laying it out and auditioning border prints. Then, life gets in the way, moving on to making other quilts with a higher priority, i.e. grandkids, the Texas Two Step, California, Ashley's t-shirt quilt....

Just this morning I thought, I can go ahead and get the leaf top ready and do some hand quilting on it. After all, I'm still a few weeks away from a final decision on the baby quilt for my newest grandbaby.

So, I'm glad to say that this ufo (unfinished object) has risen to the top! At least for the time being.

(I'm sure many of you realize that just the act of posting this is to spur me on to getting closer to completion.)

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

I see a family resemblance...



I happened across a few old pictures today, and the one on the far right is me with my nephew Tommy, let's just say a number of years ago. The two handsome fellows to the immediate right are my son and grandson, Robert and Rhett. Now, it may be my imagination, but when I saw the picture of Tommy, I could see a lot of Rhett. As a former boss of mine used to say, those apples don't fall far from the tree, do they?

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

The family grows...

The family grows! Elizabeth is 4 months along now, and we're all excited about meeting the newest member of the family. At her most recent sonogram, the doc is 95% sure she's having a girl...woo-hoo! This is the 12 week sonogram...isn't she precious??? Just snoozing and growing.

Saturday, April 11, 2009

don't you love spring?


I love this time of year...birds chirping, nice warm days without being too stinkin' hot. I got out a few nights this week and worked on digging a planting bed by the mailbox. Today I was able to put a few plants in and finish it off for now. I think it will fill in nicely.

And 2 or 3 weeks ago I lucked into Nolene and Joe being in town with their truck, and they were good enough to haul some landscape timbers home from Home Depot for me. Well, today David came over and worked on a retaining wall/planter area for me, using those timbers. It's looking so good. We (meaning David) may take it up another row on another day.

I have more projects in my head. Now to find the time to get them into the ground!

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

happy anniversary to me!

I can't let the day pass without commenting that today marks 24 years on the job. Whew! And it seems like just two or three blinks ago as I think back on different events. Hiring in on the evening shift to avoid having sitters for the kids. My kids grew up. Everything that happens in life. And the events weren't just mine. It's really true that when you work with a group of people for so long they are second family. Over the years we have shared each other's good times and bad, both professionally and personally. We've cried, laughed, cheered, and griped about the mundane and the significant...and been there for each other. I couldn't ask for a better second family. Oh, and my last comment...one year to go!!!!!