YankeeDimes

Life with the Wachters

2012-01-31T07:25:00.000-08:00

When Zach came for his last visit we had enough time and good enough weather to make the trip to New Jersey for the weekend. It was important to Steve because he wants Zach to know all of his family, not just the New Mexico half. Zach had only met his Jersey cousins 4 times before this last visit and the first two times he was really too young for it to be meaningful. So this trip back changed all that because it meant Zach would finally be old enough to get to know his cousins and uncles in a way that he never had before. He new his aunts well enough because they both came to Germany and Hawaii, but his uncles were another matter. He made up for lost time on this trip hanging out in the Man cave with them and taking his share of "Chop busting" that comes with daring to join the uncles as they sit around with beers and cigars. He learned what it was like to be in a house filled to capacity and be related to every soul in there, and I hope he experienced the sureal weirdness of feeling perfectly at home in a room full of strangers that are your blood kin.

As for me, I got to finally participate in a Wachter Christmas traditon that I have longed for over the years, to be in on Bonnie's Christmas party goofy hat shenanigans. Now all I have to do is make it to an Angel Sunday and my life will be complete!

me and my pud

2012-01-24T05:55:00.000-08:00

Don't ask me to explain why I call Winslow Pud, maybe its an almagamation of Puppy and Buddy...or not. Who knows, he just seemed like a Pud to me, so thats what I call him as often as not. I took the picture with the photobooth app on our computer about a month and a half ago. He has gotten slightly bigger but other than that, nothing else has changed. In fact he sleeps curled in my lap even as I type this. He loves laps. He also loves heat. When there is a sunbeam to sleep in he'll find it. Here lately he has discovered the joys of tunneling into a load of laundry fresh from the dryer. So much so that when he hears the dryer running he hangs out near by so as not to miss his opportunity. At night when I tuck him in, I throw the towels that he sleeps with in the dryer for a quick spin to warm them up. He is very good to go to his crate when we tell him its bedtime, but last night he did not go straight to his crate...he went to the dryer instead...What a pud!

Hey Ho, Lets go!

2012-01-11T13:30:00.000-08:00

My son Zach and I share a lot of things in common, one of which is a love for Punk music. I like to take credit for planting that seed...I remember well the year I got Green Day's Nimrod album from Steve for Christmas and played it in our little black Ford Contour as I drove me and Zach hither and yon amongst the Nebraska cornfields. We spent a lot of time trolling the antique malls. We had hardly any money so we spent far more time looking than buying, but we both enjoy the hunt as much as the score, so we usually left happy whether we spent anything or not. So when Zach came for his visit these past few weeks one of the activities that featured prominently was antiquing. We hopped in the mini, plugged in a Ramones CD that Zach made me for my birthday and went in search of some mid century modern treasures for Zach to feather his nest. So with the Ramones thumping in the background we hit on the idea to take a family photo reminiscent of an iconic Ramones album. I think it turned out really well and we ought to try it again the next time Zach is here. Maybe that time we will do our version of a Green Day album!

poor, poor Rosa lee

2011-11-28T05:44:00.000-08:00

Over the years a lot of people have said I should be a writer, enough have mentioned it to me that I have toyed with the idea from time to time; but I never knew what I should write about. Well now I know. If I ever did write a book it would be about poor, poor Rosa Lee. She is my great Grandmother, and her life seems to have been one tragedy after another . Just when I think it cannot get any worse, my cousin Pat who shares my fascination with Rosa Lee unearths another sad secret. Rosa lost her father when she was a girl, he died in an insane asylum. Though her mother was alive Rosa was declared an orphan was sent to live with the people on the neighboring farm and they eventually got legal custody of her. She married James William Furney and according to medical records had 8 children, though only 5 survived to adult hood. One child we learned died tragically. While being tossed playfully in the air by its father, it hit its head on the door jamb and died. Not long after that Rosa herself was institutionalized and she died a few months later at the young age of 37. Her redacted medical records pile on more tragedy where it is stated that her family described her as "always being more or less stupid" Well, where do you go with that? I am left wondering just what really happened in Rosa's life. Was she really stupid, or just unloved by the people who describe her that way. Who is the family that said this of her, her husband and children, or the ersatz family that took her in, or her own mother who seems to have abandoned her...Did her baby really die in a tragic accident, or was it abused and she knew it and that is what drove her insane? The Doctor also mentioned that her fragile condition was compounded by overwork and lack of stimulation. What was her home life like? Was she surrounded by loving people who watched helplessly as she unraveled right before their eyes, or where they cruel and unmoved, maybe even complicit in her deterioration. So many questions, so few answers, but wouldn't her story make a compelling novel? I want to think the best of these people in such a horrible situation, after all they are my own family, but something in Rosa's story conjures up dark undertones that makes me question what really happened. Maybe its just my over active imagination.

Just now I am tempted to say that it is a story I will never write, but I have learned enough to know that I do not know where life will take me and one day I may very well put pen to paper, or rather fingers to keyboard... so until then I will keep Rosa Lee and her story filed away in the back of my mind, and maybe one day if I ever think I am up to the task I will try my hand at writing a story about poor, poor Rosa Lee.

Me and Murray Earl

2011-11-14T08:06:00.000-08:00

Have you ever stopped for a moment and taken stock of where you are and what you are doing and come away utterly astonished at what life had in store for you? Its happened to me several times and almost always because of Steve's long and successful career in the Air Force. The picture captures just such a moment. We had the good fortune to spend a Sunday with a visiting dignitary from Australia, Air Commodore Murray Earl. He is the Australian equivalent to our Chief of Chaplains. Never once while I was growing up in Clovis NM did I think for even a second that I would have an Air Commodore over for lunch and feed him fried okra. Even after I knew he was coming I did not imagine that we would hit it off so well. As it turns out, Murray and I have a lot in common chief among them is a love for Hereford cattle. Not only is he a chaplain, but he is a rancher as well, and having both grown up in cattle country we had a broad base to build on. I proudly showed him my growing collection of ceramic herefords, and he told me about his farm...I had a good time that day and I guess he did too because a few months later I received a package in the mail. It was an Australian book on quilting that he had sent to me in lieu of a hereford for my collection. I doubt we will ever see each other again, but life is full of surprises!

I need a beer...

2011-10-25T07:05:00.000-07:00

What was supposed to be a fun, quick little blog entry about the wonderful weekend I just had with some friends at the Helen, Georgia Oktoberfest has now turned into a study of grief and frustration. Somebody somewhere arbitrarily decided to go and make my life better by tweaking the process of uploading photos to my blog. When I first decided to face my computer fears and learn to blog I got a handle on how to do it and things were great. Then we switched from Kodak to Picasa for managing our photos and I had to learn a new process, then we switched from a PC to a mac and I had to learn a new process, each time I struggled through learning the new way and thought that once and for all it was behind me and I could happily blog away without any more computer angst, and now suddenly and for no apparent reason, I cannot upload the pictures the way I used to. Did the good people at Google switch something on me without notice? Did Steve rearrange the properties of i-photo unbeknownst to me? Who knows. All I know is a few weeks ago I did it without a hitch and now this morning...well suffice it to say I am going to have to re-learn again! If you do not see a new post in a while you can bet its just me postponing the inevitable frustration of starting over at square one. Now I am too annoyed at the hour I spent trying to upload my photo to wax eloquent about friends and fun in Georgia mountains, maybe later, but don't hold your breath.

Snug as Bug in a Rug

2011-09-30T12:58:00.000-07:00

Just in time for the "cold" snap that is headed our way, anything below 70 degrees is a cold snap in SC, but I digress. Winslow is sporting his brand new bespoke doggy sweater. You cannot see it in the picture but it matches his little collar perfectly. He even seemed happy to wear it even though the weather has not snapped yet. I have a friend from my quilt guild who has taken to knitting dog sweaters for the fun of it. So for the price of a skein of yarn I have this beautiful sweater for Winslow to snuggle up in this winter. Snuggling is something that he does very well! We have already settled into a routine in the mornings. After Steve goes off to work I venture downstairs for my first cup of coffee to sip while I read my appointed Bible readings. I sit cross legged on the sofa and Winslow snuggles down into the hammock of my nightgown and snoozes blissfully while I read. Last Saturday I slept in while Steve sat sipping coffee and snuggling the dog. Winslow was quite happy where he was till I wondered in and sat down on the sofa in my usual way and Winslow could not get out of Steve's chair and into my lap fast enough! I just shrugged as I looked at Steve and explained that Winslow and I had a "Thing"...The truth is that was the first time I realized that we did have a thing. Before he sat in my lap because it was the only lap around, but when he gave up his sweet spot with Steve to come have his morning cuddle with me, well...I was pleased. After all, I still smart from the fact that my dear Panchito dropped my like rock and took up with Steve without ever looking back. On another note, potty training is on an upswing! He is doing really well, yesterday he got to have the run of the downstairs for several hours and not a single incident!

I'm OK, You're OK method of house training

2011-09-11T14:21:00.000-07:00

So its been a few years since we had to house train a puppy. In my mind Milford was a puppy prodigy ...a wunderhund of house training. Of course that is not true, I am sure it was a long and nasty ordeal for all involved, but apparently I have repressed memories about the whole affair. Wanting to do the right thing by Spazlo... I mean Winslow, I bought a book on the current methods of house training. Basically we are crate training Winslow, supposedly tapping into his denning instinct to keep him from pooing and peeing in the house. I get the concept and it has actually worked, he has kept his crate immaculate accept for an unfortunate day shortly after the de-worming medication kicked in. The part that we are having trouble with is the idea of positive reinforcement only. We have paid good money to be instructed to not scold, spank or otherwise traumatize Winslow if he should have an"accident" in the house. Well, no, not an accident, but I maintain that Winslow has had very few "accidents" but rather has made some MISTAKES and needs to be corrected. So with three solid weeks of what we have taken to calling the California method of house breaking we have finally thrown our hands up in surrender and have gone hunting for a rolled up news paper. Now when Winslow makes a mistake we let him know. Because we monitor his every move we are there when the mistake happens so there is no doubt in his mind why he is being corrected. So with the magic words "BAD DOG" ringing in his ears our little Winslow has hopefully turned the corner. With three and half solid days of old school housebreaking and no accidents in two and a half days...who says newer is better?

Honu Quadrille

2011-09-09T05:02:00.000-07:00

This is the last of my Hawaiian applique blocks for my Aloha Album quilt. I was a bit intimidated by this block, the inner segments of the turtle shells had me on edge. I finished it while in NM and was surprised at how easy it was to do, it turns out I worried over nothing. Us chronic worry worts do that a lot. Now I worry if I will ever get time to sew another Aloha album block...But its probably a waste of energy too because the quilts that are keeping me from it are coming along nicely and I will be able to add the Album back into the rotation in a few months. I look forward to it, I miss the trips down memory lane that working on this quilt has triggered.

Spazlow's hierarchy of Needs

2011-09-07T05:25:00.000-07:00

Years ago in one of Steve's classes we learned about Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Essentially it explains that we must tend to the basics before we can start fussing over the more refined elements of our existence. Have you ever been so distracted by needing the bathroom that you could focus on little else? That's Maslows hierarchy of needs at work.

Maslow never met Winslow...we are into our fourth week of potty training and as recently as yesterday Winslow refused to pee though given multiple opportunities to do so. He finally let loose a torrent right by his water bowl after just having come in from another unsuccessful potty run. That was the third time in as many days...the only other common denominator in the equation is Steve. It always happens on Steve's watch...Once I could actually blame Steve for it, but the other two times were patently not his fault. So why is our little furry ball of joy putting us through such hell? We just don't know. But this morning he rose to the potty training challenge and has done a good job and I remain optimistic that its the start of a nice long accident free run... hope really does spring eternal.

Long time no see

2011-08-30T03:33:00.001-07:00

Some of you may be wondering what ever happend to my Aloha Album quilt, its still around, simmering on a back burner. I managed to get two blocks done while in New Mexico. I wanted to finish at least one so Mom could see it with her own eyes. This is the first of the two. She was surprised by how big the blocks are. I guess I never included anything to indicate scale, so the 18 inch plus block surprised her. It is going to be finished to 18 inches, but right now its untrimmed and is probably 20 inches square give or take a half inch. I think the orchids turned out very nice. I am half tempted to ink some spots on the orchids, but hesitate because the only fix if I mess up is to pull it off and redo it with a new piece of fabric. So I think I will err on the side of caution just now. My plate is full and I do not want to create more work for myself. I have been in the habit in recent months of taking on new projects before finishing the old ones...as a result I have four unfinished quilt projects two of which have completion deadlines. So I have dropped the two that have no deadline in favor of the two that do...well sort of dropped them. One is so close to being finished that I hate to ignore it altogether, so I spend a little time on it now and then hoping to keep it moving toward the finish line. When its finally done I will take up the Aloha Album again. But as Bob as my witless I will not take on another quilt project until the ones I have started are done!

Back at my blog

2011-08-10T07:21:00.001-07:00

Well, I am finally back at my blog. I think just about everybody who reads it knows I was in NM for a month helping get Mom moved down to Roswell after her stroke. As strokes go, it was a big one though you would never guess it by looking at Mom. She is a little unsteady on her feet, a little at a loss for words some times, and her hand will not always do as its told, but she could easily fool the casual observer. It was hard even for me sometimes to remember that she was in recovery because she seemed so much her old self at times. The move to Roswell was remarkable in that it was utterly unremarkable. Things fell into place so seamlessly that it hardly felt like the major upheaval that it was. It has been my experience that things generally go that way when God is left in charge. I can't speak for Mom or Jamie, but I know I only had a fleeting moment of sorrow saying goodbye to 921 W. Plaza. The things on the horizon were exciting enough to hold my gaze and keep me from looking back too much. Maybe my life as a military dependent; always recovering from or gearing up for a move made it a natural thing for me. Whatever the reason, it felt like as the old prayer book said "a meet and right thing to do" I hope it was that way for everybody. Saying goodbye to friends was the hardest part, but as big as NM is, its a small state when it comes to staying connected. Out there its not at all uncommon to drive 3 or 4 hours to get to some place worth going and Roswell is only 2 hours from Clovis so I know Mom will see all her friends from time to time especially after we move back home!

Nine down, Eight to go

2011-06-15T06:24:00.000-07:00

Here is the next block for my Hawaiian Album quilt. The lauhala mat that the fruit is sitting on is really woven! Just in case you cannot tell from the picture, starting with the pineapple and going clockwise next there is breadfruit, mango, grapes, lilikoi, papaya, bananas and finally two coconuts one in the husk and one out. Looking at this block I am reminded of the bananas that grew in our front yard. While we were there a stalk of them ripened and we harvested them, cutting off the stalk and bringing the whole big thing into the house to the tune of Harry Belafonte's "Hey mister tally man tally me bananas..."It was all fun and cute till the gecko jumped out and ran through our kitchen...thats when we learned to be careful about what we dragged into the house. What we did not realize then was that geckos in the house are part of life in Hawaii. That was just one of a long string of gecko encounters. I actually grew to like them because they ate the bugs and kept to themselves, and as lizards go, are actually kind of cute. I think I may have to add a gecko to my Hawaiian album quilt, maybe sitting on the lauhala mat by the bananas...

My favorite picture ever

2011-05-26T04:55:00.000-07:00

I have managed to check off a number of bucket list line items in the past few years what with the poison ivy identification and the climbing of a lighthouse and now this. Seeing my favorite picture of all times live and in person at the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC. Its a self portrait of Judith Leyster. My love affair with her began way back when we lived in the Netherlands. One of our favorite castles to visit was called Muiderslot. It was on the outskirts of Amsterdam and it had all the requisite features of a castle, crenelations, towers a moat...everything. It is what I see when I think of a castle. During the 1600's salons were hosted there for the local movers and shakers, almost exclusively men, except for one daring young woman, Judith Leyster. She was ahead of her time and was successful in a mans world at a mans trade. Whats more, it was as if she was welcomed into it, and was treated as an equal. Thats when I first learned of her, and thought she must have been extraordinary. I think I saw a still life that she painted hanging in the castle. It was not till as a going away present that our Dutch friends gave us a book on the Dutch golden age of painting that I first saw Judith's self portrait. Remembering her from the Castle I was tickled to see her looking back at me and I could instantly see why she was welcomed in the Salon. She has that quality about her that makes you want to know her better.

Seeing the picture in person just made me love it all the more. It was as if I had stopped by her studio for a visit and she was talking and painting at the same time, and stopped just for a moment to turn and give full attention to me. I think one reason I love it is because I know that moment, have lived that moment dozens of times. Usually sitting around with a group of women, maybe we are quilting, or working on miniatures or decorating cakes...whatever work is at hand and the chatter is flowing, but somebody says something that warrants full attention so work halts just for a moment and then resumes again almost before it had completely stopped and the moment is so natural its hardly noticed. That is what Judith captures in her picture and I never really recognized that until I saw it on the wall in the gallery!

Rose and Maile lei

2011-05-07T04:20:00.000-07:00

Here is the next block in my Aloha Album. I finished it 1 and a half blocks ago, that is to say I have finished another block and am more than half way through finishing a second block. Why its taken me so long to post a picture of it, I cannot say....Well thats not entirely honest. I think I can say. I have been busy, it's true. I have been out of town twice since I finished this block, in bed sick for a week and then out making " Nice Nice" for a solid uninterrupted week with Steve's work...and I could claim any or all of that for the reason its taken me so long, but it really boils down to the new computer. I am still on shaky ground with it in some respects, uploading pictures being one of them, and as is the tradition in my family passed on to me by my mother, and her mother before her, if its no fun ignore it...Its a good strategy actually except for its fatal flaw, eventually we must all face what we hide from and the longer we put it off, the worse it usually gets, so I am trying to face my computer downloading issues head on...A small matter for most, but for me and others like me, its a true profile in courage!

What had happened was....

2011-05-05T17:11:00.000-07:00

I have done enough traveling to know that when I am on the road, I am most likely off my bathroom cycle, if you get what I mean...so in an attempt to keep things as they should, I poured a good dose of benefiber into a ziploc baggy to take on the road with me.

Fiber is not the only thing in short supply when I am traveling, coffee creamer is also hard to come by especially when I am relying the the little complimentary coffee station in my hotel room with its single 1/2 teaspoon packet of solidified powdered non dairy creamer. So I have been taking extra creamer with me too for years now.

On our first trip to Washington this April I left my little baggy of benefiber behind sitting on the counter at home and drove off without it. As you may recall from an earlier post, that is the same trip I was on when I succumbed to the flu. After the LONGGGG car ride home I crept upstairs and into bed and did not come down for two days. Steve did all the unpacking and putting things away, for which I am ever grateful. When I finally made it downstairs I remembered my baggy of benefiber and thought I should get it and pour the stuff back in the jar, but it was nowhere to be found. It slipped my mind for another few days until I finally remembered to ask Steve if he had seen it anywhere. His response to me was "you mean that was fiber?" " Yea, it was fiber....what did you do with it?" He mistook it for the coffeemate I have also been know to travel with and poured it all into the creamer dish. Well, that sure explained a lot... Now I knew why my coffee tasted so very strong; so strong that I would go back and put in another spoonful or two of "coffeemate" which would then account for my other "irregularities"

At least now I know the importance of clearly labeling things!

Remembering Gerry

2011-04-26T06:22:00.000-07:00

I just got back from Washington where I attended the "In Memory" day celebration at the VietNam Memorial Wall. I went because Daddy was one of the new inductees to the In Memory Honor Roll and he was being honored there that day. There were all kinds of people there to honor their loved ones, mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, wives, husbands and children, even friends and fellow soldiers. Some of the loved ones were recently lost while others, like my Dad had been gone for decades. It did not seem to matter though, everyone still felt their loss.

My friend June knows a thing or two about that. She is learning to live with a new normal that is life without her husband and best friend Gerry. She tells me that part of what makes it hard is that life seems to have filled up the space where Gerry used to be and its like people have forgotten him. But I want her to know that I have not forgotten him. In fact he is on my mind a lot. I remember the things about him that I loved. He had the best smile. It lit up his whole face and then spread through the room like a golden glow. He also had a knack for telling the most inappropriate medical stories with the clinical detachment you would expect of the good doctor that he was, but most of us not being in the medical field could hardly believe what we were hearing. He hardly seemed to notice the stunned looks on our faces. Steve and I would laugh and laugh because it was almost guaranteed that a day spent with Gerry would mean another medical marvel for us add to our growing collection of Gerry stories. I remember that he was a chow hound and would eat anything that did not move! And I remember that Gerry was as wise and gentle and accepting a soul as I have ever met. He was nonjudgemental and willing to look at something from every and all perspectives and give value and respect to ideas and beliefs that were not his own.

June does not have to worry that Gerry will be forgotten because I know he is remembered by more people than she can imagine. His work in the emergency rooms of all the hospitals that relied on him brought him into peoples lives at times when they needed not only his skill as a physician, but his grace as a human being the most. I know he touched their lives in ways that he probably did not even know but in ways they will never forget. All those people may not be shouting Gerry's name from the roof tops, but they carry him in their hearts and they will remember him just like we do because a man like Gerry is simply unforgettable.

a little South Carolina Aloha

2011-04-13T05:48:00.000-07:00

The State flower of SouthCarolina is the Jessamine. Its easy to see why too. The vines cover most everything in the wild places of the state. They go un noticed most of the time, but in the early spring they start to catch your eye. Little yellow buds appear and in a matter of days the vines are bursting with yellow trumpet shaped flowers that smell somewhat like pez candy muddled with cheap perfume; a little sweet but not in an unpleasant way. Our backyard wilderness is covered in jessamine vines and when I looked out over them this spring I could not help it, I had to have a go at stringing a lei. So I went out in the weeds and collected the blossoms. Even though I must have picked over 100 flowers I hardly left a dent in this years crop. It turned out rather nice if I do say so myself. The only thing is that while it seems the most natural thing in the world to wear a lei in Hawaii, its is a little strange and uncomfortable to wear one in South Carolina. So I wore it for an hour or so, and then gave it to my neighbor Barbara who probably thought I had lost my mind. Still It was fun for a while, and if I have another bumper crop of jessamine next year I may do it all over again, we'll see...

Cherry Blossom Festival

2011-04-07T06:33:00.000-07:00

Many years ago I was given stacks and stacks of old National Geographic magazines. What a treasure trove it was! Every night for my bedtime reading I would pick a new magazine to peruse. One magazine featured the Cherry Blossoms in Washington DC. It was from around the 1950's and the pictures had that Kodachrome cartoony colorized feel. I was enchanted,

....A desire to see the cherry blossoms for myself was planted then and I have quietly kept it all these years. It was one of those things that was not a burning all consuming desire, but one of the sorts that sits quietly in the back of your mind as one of those "wouldn't it be nice..." kind of desires. As luck would have it, we were in DC for a friends retirement ceremony. Steve was on TDY for it as a participant and I tagged along and got to stroll around the tidal basin and view the Cherry blossoms with my own two eyes and well, it was nice! and perfectly timed too! At least as far as the blossoms were concerned. They were in full bloom just days before they were to start losing petals. Timing was less spectacular for me. I knew I was under the weather, but had no idea I was on the threshold of a full blown case of the flu. Looking back now at the pictures Steve took of me that day I can see it in my face. I should have been home in bed. Oh well, that's where I am now and glad to be too. At first I felt bad for being out and about in a busy urban environment harboring the flu... I kept to myself and wore gloves most of the time, so hopefully there will not be a spike in flu stats that is attributable to me. But on reflection and considering the crap the folks in Washington are currently putting us through, I kinda of like the idea putting them through a little crap myself...I'm just saying...

A tale of two quilts

2011-03-23T14:55:00.000-07:00

Right now, Steve and I appear to be in a baby cycle...that is to say people we know and love are starting to reproduce so I have been busy making baby quilts. The two pictured above are the same pattern, but done for two different babies in two different color schemes in two different countries.. The first is for our friends in The Netherlands, Bas and Erna and their new much wanted and long awaited baby girl. The second is for the first of the next generation of the Wachter family. Technically the baby will be a Murphy/DeVore...but technically the Wachters are actually Richardsons so who can keep track, and why do we care? The important thing is that Steve's sister Bonnie is finally going to be a grandmother when her son and daughter in law have their first baby sometime in June. I had the pleasure of meeting Jackie for the first time last September and loved her on site. We talked then about her desire to start a family, what neither of us knew was that at that very moment she was already pregnant! I hope her little peanut likes its quilt as much as I do!

As the Aquarium Cycles...

2011-03-14T14:59:00.000-07:00

So, I was cleaning the living room the other day and I paused to look at our new fish tank. Steve has gotten on the fish tank bandwagon with me and together we have set up a really good looking tank. Its about 30 gallons, and its got live plants, a first for me, but Steve really wanted to give it a shot, and so far so good. Only one type died on us but all the others are growing like sea weeds. Its teaming with life, our tank and that is what I was thinking about when I took a moment to watch the fish. Less than twelve hours after adding the first two guppy fish to the tank to help it get through its nitrogen cycle ( the first crucial few weeks of a new tank) I looked up and saw baby fish swimming around the tank. You can see one in the top photo. 5 have survived from the initial brood and they are hale and hearty and doing fine. We have since added 5 danios, 5 tetras, 2 otocinclus and 3 angle fish, and I enjoy watching them all. The baby guppies though are special. They will live out their entire lives in the middle of my living room... Think about that for a minute. There are five fish downstairs in my living room right now who will live out the entirety of their existence in the middle of my living room. That is

an odd thing to consider, no?

It might seem sad at first except I know these fish are many hundreds of generations removed from their wild ancestors and so for captive bred fish they are living large. I don't mean to brag, but really, look at that second picture and tell me those baby fish were not born into the lap of watery luxury!

Aloha Oe!

2011-03-07T13:59:00.001-08:00

Here are a few shots of our newly redecorated home office. We had so many cool things from Hawaii that we decided to devote a room to them. I spent a great deal of time surfing the web looking for the right office furniture. We finally found a computer desk and hutch that were at the high end of our price range, but it had the right tropical vibe and we were just waiting till the stars aligned and the time was right to buy that desk. In the meantime however we kept looking around in case we found a bargain and boy did we! The desk itself was not tropical in any way, but like my friend June likes to point out, real Hawaiian style is not over the top tropical with koa wood and rattan everywhere, but a mixture of some traditional, some tropical...so with that in mind we decided to snap up the bargain desk and make it work. We found the perfect rattan chair at Pier One on clearance, and a great lamp at a consignment store. Once we moved all our Hawiiana into the room it was ready to go. I did add one little touch though. The woven panels in the hutch are my handiwork. I bought some lauhala place mats online, cut them to fit and stuck them on the glass panels of the two cupboards. Once they were trimmed out with bass wood trim they look like they were always there. Now we have some more concealed storage and the best part is that its totally reversible. If we ever decide to redecorate then all I have to do is pull them out and clean the glass. So tell me what you think?

A visual Aid

2011-03-01T14:14:00.000-08:00

Would you believe me if I told you I had been trying to get back to my blog for three days? Well, that is to say, get a new picture up on my blog. I have been back, but empty handed, so did not bother to post anything. If a picture really does speak a thousand words, then the above shot should easily be able to fill that quota. It was taken with the photo booth feature on the computer, but it's taken me this long to figure out how to get it on the blog. To be fair I have not been at it full bore for three solid days, but I have made an attempt or two and left in frustration. I guess I am back to my old click and cuss method of computer usage. I have yet to figure out how to upload a picture from Picasa to my blog, but maybe I will figure it out. I guess Picasa is fairly new to the Mac world, like me, and like me is still feeling its way around in the dark uncharted reaches of deep cyberspace that is realm of the Mac user. Hopefully I will learn the new ropes soon and it will not be the trauma to post on my blog that it is right now.

A hot mess

2011-02-18T06:41:00.000-08:00

This is a picture of a cupcake doggy we picked up at a local grocery store to take to a friends house on New Years day when they asked if we would bring desert. It was meant as a joke because we thought it was the most hideous thing we had seen in a long time and was well worth the $4.99 it cost just to see the stunned look on the faces of our hosts...Joke was on us. It turned out that they actually liked the dog and thought it was cute... I had Steve take a picture of it in case I decided to submit it to the Cake Wrecks blog. So far I have not bothered. I chose to post it on my own blog as a visual metaphor of my computer skills. Just as this creation can only loosely be described as a cake or for that matter a dog... I can only be loosely described as computer literate. What we both are in fact is a hot mess, though neither of us can be fully responsible for being that way. Just as this Dog was left as you see it at the hands of another, so I have been rendered helpless by somebody not leaving the computer as they found it. I cannot upload my pictures from my camera and am left to troll my old photos for something usable. I cannot be sure, but what I think has happened is that my more computer literate Husband has monkeyed with the settings and now Picasa does not function for me like it once did. I have tried my patented method of clicking the mouse until something happens, but nothing has...I even resorted to calling Steve on each of his two cell phones, but you guessed it, he is not available right now... so... PLEASE STAND BY....

The Mokes

2011-02-06T06:37:00.000-08:00

This block does not exist in the original Aloha Album. There is a trumpet vine block that I eliminated because though they are pretty, I don't have any real associations with them and Hawaii other than I drove past a nice one on my way to Zach's school from time to time. I modified the Diamond Head block for this one of the Moku Lua, the two islands that are just off shore of our favorite place in all of O'ahu, Bellows Beach. Now, of all the blocks in the quilt this will probably be the most special, not just because I designed it ( rather cobbled it together from other sources) but because Bellows was a special place for us. Sometimes we had the whole beach to ourselves. If surf was up we could ride our body boards for ages. I could see then why surfers are addicted to riding the waves, when you catch a wave just right and you are able to ride the crest...nothing else compares. Of course that only happened once for me, the waves big enough to do that are a little daunting and I wondered if it was the smartest thing I had ever done...probably not, but I am glad I did anyway. I will never forget it. I will also never forget a day when the sea was calm and we floated in the water bobbing and drifting in the gentle surf. While I lay stretched out in the sea I looked up and saw a rainbow over the open water. It was a moment of unrivaled beauty and peace. That's why we loved going out to Bellows so much, no matter what was on offer -adrenaline rushes, meditative soaks, or just walking along the beach it always put us back in balance. June is blessed to live a short walk from this very view!

Kalo

2011-01-31T06:55:00.000-08:00

This is block number 4 in my Aloha Album, its a Taro plant, or Kalo in Hawaiian. Our Neighbor Jerry Carson had a pretty taro patch at the bottom of his garden border. It was where the water collected when his automatic sprinklers kicked in and caused a little stream to form trickling down the slope of his yard making the perfect spot to grow a taro plant. When he thinned it once he gave me a plant to put in my yard and as far as I know it's still there. I like that I planted a taro plant while in Hawaii, it seems the appropriate thing to do. I also enjoyed poi while there. I liked the creamy texture and the faintly yeasty flavor. I loved mixing a little poi with my Kahlua pig, though I was told by someone that its not done...mixing poi with other foods like that...While I do like to respect tradition when I can, I will not let it stand in the way of good eats, so I am an unrepentant poi tainter and will mix again if ever given the opportunity.

This block was a joy to stitch. It had lots of inside curves and points...things that used to give me fits back in my early days, but now that I know a few tricks of the trade they are actually more fun to stitch than the straight parts. I hope the next block is as fun to sew...

Home at Last

2011-01-24T07:21:00.000-08:00

Zach Calls New Mexico home now, and I am glad. He is happy there and Oma's house has always been a home for Zach. When he was little, and maybe still now, he loved to come upon Oma's house after dark when the big picture window was glowing golden and inviting him in. He said it always felt very warm and welcoming to come to Oma's house. So I am glad he has that now, especially when he needs it most. But what I needed most lately was to have him here with me for a while. So his trip here was just what the doctor ordered. I had to snap a picture of him as he was flopped out in his bed making what we always called "Zach's room" really his for the first time since we moved here two summers ago. Finally, with Zach in his old bed under his old quilt did I finally feel home at last.

Where the magic happens

2011-01-19T08:19:00.000-08:00

This is it, my frog, my sewing room, secret lair. Its where I spend the vast majority of my time. I love having a spacious room devoted to my "doings" Its big enough to have plenty of work surfaces and room on the floor to spread out. There is even room for our exercise equipment up there! I am totally spoiled now and when we go shopping for our next house such a room will be high on my list of priorities!

I have not spent much time up there recently, too distracted by dogs and life to focus on any of my projects. But I feel the need to stitch coming on, so as soon as I get a minimum amount of housework done today I am heading up there for some occupational therapy.

Another Go

2011-01-12T06:10:00.000-08:00

I figured while I was still riding the crest of my blue ribbon wave I should enter another quilt show. The thing is, I never thought I would win a blue ribbon at a State fair, at any quilt show really. It all goes back to my first quilt show I attended. It was a national quilt show that happened to be held that year in Omaha where I lived. The quilts there were tremendous, the best efforts of the best quilters not in the county, or the state, but the whole country! That set the bar pretty high. I thought then if that is what it takes to be an award winning quilter, then I will have to be content with making quilts for their own sake. That notion was compounded by visiting the local art museum at the same time as the quilt show where they had on exhibit the top 100 quilts of the century. You can only imagine the quality and craftsmanship that was on display! Seeing that level of skill was daunting, but also liberating. That was when I adopted the quilting motto " My quilt, my rules" and went about the the next 10 years quilting the way I wanted to, in my lap without a hoop or a frame. If I never planned to enter my quilts in a show, and my sole purpose in quilting was for the joy of it, then why force myself to learn techniques and styles that were not comfortable or natural for me? What I did not realize was happening as I went about making quilts my way was that I was actually becoming good! So winning a blue Ribbon this year was not so much accomplishing a long sought goal, as it was realizing a long abandoned and never fully owned dream. It spoke to the possibility of what I am actually capable of and so with that in mind a few weeks ago I submitted a CD with pictures of my miniature crazy quilt to the National Quilt Society's BIG show in Paducah, KY. Just say the word Paducah to quilters and they will know you mean THE QUILT SHOW in Paducah. I thought it was a little bold, a little ambitious, but why not? Its a juried show, so even being accepted will go down in my book as a win, heck...the fact that I produced something I thought was worth the attempt is a win! I think its ironic how the superlative quilts that I saw all those years ago that made me think I was not up to the task of award winning quilting actually freed me to grow into producing that very thing.

Don't do it!

2011-01-04T07:56:00.000-08:00

" Don't do it! they are nasty little things that bite!" That's what my friend Sherry said to me in an e-mail when I mentioned to her that I was thinking of getting a hamster. I have to admit, her warning did give me pause for thought, but it was a little too little and a little too late. I had by that time pretty much decided to do it. I am glad I did. Mr. Humphries is a delightful little thing, and I can say she has never bitten anyone. Hamsters have bad eyesight and so will feel things with their mouths, and she has done that a time or too, and I can see why people might mistake it for a bite, but its not really. She never clamped down and was as surprised to find my finger in her mouth as I and we both withdrew immediately...no harm, no foul. I have learned to wash my hands before I handle her so she will not mistake them for any sort of food. I imagine a peanut in its shell looks to her blurry hamster eyes not unlike a finger and vice versa, so why confuse the issue with the smell of food on my hands? One of us after all is working with a hamster brain, and so I should always do my best to insure its not me. I read up on hamster husbandry before I got Mr. Humphries and one author mentioned that the one down side to Hamsters is their short life span. That they are gone all too soon leaving a hamster sized hole in your heart. I thought that was a bit much when I read it and thought to myself that their life span seemed just about right to me, after three years or so, I would be tired of cleaning the cage and would be ready to move on. Now that I have had the pleasure of Mr. Humphries company for the past 9 months, I am starting to think there will be a hamster sized hole after all.

Our God Dogs Frazier and Oliver

2010-12-27T08:30:00.000-08:00

Meet Frazier and Ollie our God Dogs. They belong to our friends Steve and Paula Craine. They recently went on Vacation to Florida and we volunteered to have their boys come stay with us while they were away. I am sure you have already noticed how much Frazier lookes like our Milford! But Frazier is his own dog, and from the inside out he was nothing like Milford at all. Neither of them were. That is comforting in a weird way. I don't want to find that other dogs are like Milford, because then neither of them are or were special, and that's not right or true. Ollie and Frazier are as different from each other as either of them is different from Milford. Ollie bold as brass one minute and hiding in the corner the next, and Frazier preferring to hole up alone in his kennel most of time until he would go rip roaring out the door chasing squirrels both real and imagined. It was fun having dogs in the house again, but it did help us decide that we are not ready to have a dog of our own yet. We like the freedom of being dogless, we like not having dog hair everywhere, we like leaving food on low tables without fear, we like spending all day running around town without thinking we need to head home to let the dogs out...No, we are not ready yet, but we will be soon enough.

My Consolation Prize

2010-12-22T06:04:00.000-08:00

As soon as Steve and I got over the disappointment of not going to

DC we had to get over the disappointment of not going to Germany...so we did what works best for us and we turned to retail therapy. Facing another 3 years in the kitchen designed for a bachelor we decided to trade in our old kitchen table for an island with breakfast bar. I gained much needed work surface, two cabinets, and two drawers, some more display space and on the far side, a place for my most used cookbooks. We added some groovy tractor seat stools and voila a kitchen I can live with! The best part is now I have a work surface that faces the TV in the living room, so now I can watch and chop at the same time! I did wonder though, why this island, though smaller than my kitchen table actually seemed more useful to me, and it came to me, its the height. Its the same height as a kitchen counter and so makes for a usable work surface. The table, unless you were sitting down, was too low to use in that way. The table is not gone though, its been moved upstairs in my sewing room, hoisted up on bed risers bought at Bed Bath and Beyond and is now my big work table up there. I guess we could have saved a lot of money and just put the table on the risers downstairs, but what it would have gained in functionality, it would have more than lost in style...

Hunting the Hunter Hunting the Hunter

2010-12-19T05:43:00.000-08:00

If you look through our family pictures you are bound to notice there are

far few pictures of Steve than there ought to be. That's because he is usually the one holding the camera. Maybe that will change now that he upgraded to a better quality digital and I inherited the point and click Kodak for my own personal use. So now with both of us armed with a camera I might catch a shot of him too now and then like I did in Ashville not long ago. We were on the Biltmore Estate looking for photo opportunities when I spotted Steve stalking the statue of Dianna Goddess of the Hunt looking for the perfect angle, so I began hunting him as he hunted her. Its not the best photo in the world, but I like the concept of it very much. Maybe I should make a game of it, collecting shots of him taking pictures and see how many different poses, angles and wierd moments I can capture...Photographing the photograper hmm, I think I will give it a shot.

Biltmore Estate

2010-12-16T05:34:00.000-08:00

Just a few weeks ago Steve and I took a mini VayCay. We went to Ashville NC, to visit the Biltmore estate. We bought the Christmas Candlelight tour with bonus day ticket. So we arrived at the estate at sunset and toured inside visiting all the rooms decorated for Christmas and lit by candlelight. There were musicians in the atrium playing beautifully, and the rooms all had decorated trees in them, and fires blazing in the fire places. It was lovely. I would show you pictures, but they did not allow photography indoors.

We went back the next morning to see the estate in the daylight and we took pictures then. You can imagine how grand the inside was when you see what the outside looks like! It is definitely on par with the great houses in Europe! Its open year round and offers all sorts of activities on the grounds from Horseback riding to segway tours...We think maybe we'll take one of those with Zach on one of his visits if he is interested...The only thing is they weigh you to make sure you do not exceed the weight limit for the horses or the segways, which thankfully I don't...but still...it had better be in private! The things I'll do for a little adventure...

Back from the Long Arm quilter

2010-12-14T05:19:00.000-08:00

My Diary quilt is finished and hanging on the wall. I have taken to sending many of my quilt tops out to be professionally quilted on a long arm sewing machine. My hands have only so many stitches left in them and I am saving them up for my really dear projects. So my lap quilts, little projects like the diary quilt, some baby quilts I have in the works all get sent to my Long Arm quilter. She did a great job on the diary quilt and it makes me wish I was half decent at machine quilting, or had a spare $10,000 or so laying around so I could buy a long arm sewing machine...maybe one day, you just never know. I have been finding that I actually am reaching a lot of my long term goals and dreams, so why not add that to the list? After all, it could happen!

Do you know what I know

2010-12-09T05:53:00.000-08:00

I am getting better about keeping Christmas Secrets, but there

was a time when I could scarcely keep my mouth shut. Its not that I didn't want people to have a surprise on Christmas morning, it was that I could not live with the uncertainty of whether or not I had made a good call on the the gift I had chosen! I was always desperate to know if I had hit the mark or missed it by a mile, and the only way to know for sure was to spill my guts. So I often would. I have moved on from there though in recent years and can now keep a Christmas secret with the best of them. Is it because I have more confidence in my gift selecting capabilities, or do I care less about whether or not my selection is well received? I think its actually due to the fact that as we have all grown older, and as the amount of money spent on gifts has increased, we have all come to see the wisdom in asking each other what we really want and then really getting it for each other, so there is less mystery all around. The gifts that are truly a surprise are the trifling gifts that if they are a good call are a source of delight, and if they are off their mark, then the heartache is proportionately small, in line with the amount of money and thought spent on them. So I guess I have not gained any great self control after all, but there for a minute I thought I had made a great leap forward.

The picture by the way was taken in the garden at Biltmore. He looks like he is about to whisper something good in your ear, does he not?

Mom's Mijita

2010-12-06T09:51:00.000-08:00

We are dog people, and have always been dog people. So when Mom decided the time had come to get a dog we were all on board. After some looking and asking around Jenny announced that she had just the sort of dog Mom was looking for. That's when Mija and Mom both hit pay dirt. Mija could not ask for a better situation. She is loved and fussed over and has a life that pound puppies dream of. Her boy was even adopted into the family and Junior now lives with Jamie , Sue and the kids. Mija and Junior even get to see each other once in a while. And for Mija, once in a while is enough. Junior, a chiweenie, is a spitfire and is about all his mom can take.

Mom has the dog of her dreams. Mija is good natured, smart, full of personality. She stuffs a remarkable amount of dog in that tiny little frame of hers. She may be small, but she is all dog! There is just enough mischievousness in her to keep things interesting, but not so much as to take the joy out of having her around. Like the rest of us, Mija is a chow hound and it was not long before she succumbed and put on some weight. The good news is that like the rest of us, She is learning that less is more and has started off on the long road back to slimville.

I wonder when Steve and I decide to start looking for a pup if we will find one as good as Mija? We will get to have some furry company in a few days. Our friends the Craines are going to Florida for 10 days and we are going to keep their two dogs for them while they are away, Frazier is a rat/jack russel mix, and Ollie is all jack russel. It will either send us strait out to find a pup of our own, or it will remind us why we decided to wait in the first place.

A thing of beauty is a joy forever

2010-12-03T09:36:00.000-08:00

Have you ever been taken by surprise by something that struck you as uncommonly beautiful? So beautiful that you could look at it for ages? That happened to me on my recent trip to Ashville, NC. It was around 4 in the afternoon and Steve and I had just gotten in to Asheville and were trying to find our way to the Marriott. I looked up and saw the dome on the First Baptist Church and from then on I was useless to Steve as a navigator, at least until we had driven far enough from the dome that we lost sight of it. It was love at first sight! Maybe it had to do with the angle of the late afternoon fall light, or the backdrop of autumnal colors, whatever it was won me over utterly and completely. I could have feasted my eyes on it for hours, too bad we had a time schedule to stick to. The next day before we drove home Steve took me back to the church so that I could get a photograph of the dome. I thought it might prove inspirational for a quilt or mini project somewhere down the line. At the very least I can look at it and study it to my hearts content now. I love the colors of the dome, how the verdigris of the cupola seems to spill out onto the tiles of the dome and trickle down. Maybe its the colors that I find so striking. Celedon green is a favorite and pairing it with the terra cotta makes both colors more than they are alone. I don't know, but whatever it is, I want more!

Start with Lily Gilding 101 down below...

2010-11-30T06:44:00.000-08:00

I know it will be posted in reverse order, and had I thought it through I could have done this backward and then it would have been easier on my gentle readers, but its early and I am not that clever. So if you are reading this first, then go back two blog entries earlier to Lily Gilding 101 and start there.

Steve may not have brought home 10,000 Italian twinkle lights, but we do have a hand carved wooden Italian nativity. We bought it in the Black Forrest of Germany. We spent more than we should have, but I have never regretted it. Its a true heirloom. It makes me happy every time I see it. We take turns from year to year arraigning it. This year was my turn. I wonder what Steve will do with it next year?

By now you must all realize I have an addiction to Christmas ornaments. We have 5 trees up in the house this year, though its not as grave as it sounds. There is the one big one, the aluminum one in the dining room, and all the rest are wee little trees. One in our bedroom that has my miniature Hallmark ornaments, and the two pictured above, the first one is in my craft room. I figured I spend so much time up there I ought have a tree to enjoy, and the last one is Steve's tree. He has been collecting the White House ornaments, so we devoted an elegant blue and gold tree for them. Having the extra trees eases some congestion on the big tree and showcases the ornaments better. I will have to curb myself though. Its getting stupid and I know it. My only relief is to branch out and do trees in other places...which I have. The office Tree trimming party is on Friday (my idea) We donated our old, overly large tree to the office and will be decorating it in a blue and silver Air Force theme...I have already bought a lot of the ornaments!

Lily Gilding, the saga continues

2010-11-30T06:19:00.000-08:00

I don't know why I have such penchant for Christmas decorations, but I do. The trouble for me is that it is like the snow in Omaha. Growing up in New Mexico I saw plenty of snow, we got some most every year. Sometimes we would get over 6 inches in one snowfall and that was a lot for us! But it would always melt away. The only reminder that it had snowed at all would be the grubby piles of parking lot snow slowly shrinking away over the next few weeks. In Omaha it was different. It would usually snow for the first time in late October and then turn too cold for that snow to melt and then over the course of the winter the snow would accumulate till the piles on either side of the driveway would be too high to throw another shovel full on to them. After that first winter I learned to throw the scoops deep into the yard to make way for the next dozen snowfalls...So like the snow in Omaha my ornaments and decorations are starting to accumulate. I love them and want to keep them, but then I love the new stuff too and want to get it...I am putting myself on a 5 year self imposed ornament moratorium...I have promised not to buy another new ornament for 5 years and furthermore, I have promised to cull the collection of at least 5 ornaments each year (but that included accidental breakage) I am incorrigible though, I have already decided at the front end of my 5 year restriction exactly what I will buy when my time is up...green! I do not have enough green ornaments. Don't you know I will window shop for 5 years looking at all the wonderful green ornaments...I wonder if I will be able to do it? When I was struggling to find room on the tree for one more ornament, it seemed like a good idea, but already I am having serious misgivings!

Lily Gilding 101

2010-11-30T05:58:00.001-08:00

I think the next time I need a name for some online adventure I will call myself "Lily gilder" I absolutely belong to that group of people who believe more is more and good can always be made better with just a little sprinkle of glitter and that is never more true than at Christmas. I get teased a lot by Steve and others for the amount of decorations I have accumulated, but he always enjoys the house when its been decked out for Christmas, and I see him inching toward Griswald status with every passing year in the exterior illumination category. When he comes home from Lowes with 10,000 Italian twinkle lights my years of justifying my Christmas ornaments will be over for sure. I am almost free and clear now if you add in his penchant for Christmas CD's...Anyway, you requested it Junie, so here it is...My Christmas house 2010. Be advised it will come in multiple posts because I can only fit so many pictures in each blog entry.

'Ohelo Berry Wreath

2010-11-27T10:13:00.000-08:00

I can hardly believe it myself, but its true, I have finished the second block in my Aloha Album. I really did not think I would even begin this quilt for years, let alone actually make reasonable progress on it, but there you go. I have two of the seventeen blocks done. Of course one of those 17 is a monster center medallion block that will take months to complete, so I am still trying to pace myself. This one is an 'Ohelo berry wreath, I had not heard of 'Ohelo berries before so did a little research on line and found that they grow wild on the big island and make a nice jam. Like the breadfruit, I have never tried it, but I might since I also found that you can order jars of it online, or maybe a kind hearted friend who lives in Hawaii will take pity on me and send it in a care package one day (hint, hint)

I think the dark background is working pretty well. I will feel more comfortable in my decision as I get more blocks done and can get a better idea of the end result, but I feel good about it at this point. Now back to my sewing room where block number three is sitting waiting for me to move it toward completion. Its the block I went rogue on and decided to redesign entirely to suit me. Wait till you see it, I think its going to be a doozy!

Treasure Hunt, the first of five

2010-11-22T08:39:00.000-08:00

This is the first of my five miniature quilts that I am making to submit to IGMA The International Guild of Miniature Artisans for an Artisan certificate. Artisan status within the guild is highly prized and not easy to get. Most who apply are turned down on their first submission, so I really do not know what to expect, but I do know I am pleased with this, my first effort. I call it "Treasure Hunt" because of the jewel tone colors, the central theme of gold and for the over 20 "I SPy" motifs I have embroidered on the quilt. See if you can spot some of them...A mushroom, a bouquet of flowers, a key, a pair of cherrys, a spider and her web, a peacock feather and a tropical island...I know its not easy to see them on the screen, but if you look closely you might find a few. While your at it, notice the gold feather stitching, about sixteen of them to the inch!

Ulu

2010-11-19T08:24:00.000-08:00

Just like in traditional patchwork where the first block you are likely to learn is a 9-patch, the first block you will likely do in Hawaiian quilting is the Ulu pattern. Ulu is Hawaiian for breadfruit and it is a tradition in the islands for novice quilters to make this pattern first, doing so is said to ensure many more happy adventures in Hawaiian quilt making. Since my Aloha Album is a huge undertaking, I thought it wise to follow the advice of the quilting Kupunas and Kahunas. Its good advice too because the Ulu pattern is excellent for cutting your applique teeth on. It has plenty of points, as well as inside and outside curves...no wonder they tell you to do it first, it will teach you all you need to know, except what breadfruit actually tastes like...thats one of the things I would have liked to have done while in Hawaii but did not get the opportunity. But at least now I have quilted it!

great great great grandpa Bole

2010-11-16T21:53:00.000-08:00

A long time ago I heard a statistic that stuck with me; that most people cannot name their great grandparents. At the time I heard it I know I couldn't. So it pleases me that I can finally name all eight of them and many more still. Not only that, but I have seen pictures of all but one of them, my Granny's mother who died when Granny was just a little girl. And whats more, I know a little bit about some of them by piecing together little snippets that I have collected through my research and now have a sketchy pixelated composite idea of what some aspects of their lives might have been like. I like knowing my families place in history, it helps me understand my own place a little better I guess.

This summer on my trip back to South Carolina I made a point to go to Camp Ford in Tyler Texas. It was a rebel prison camp from the civil war and it was where my great great great grandfather Sampson Bole died of disease just months before the war ended. As prison camps went, it was one of the better ones, and had it not been for overcrowding toward the end Sampson might have lived. He was from Ohio and from his muster records I know he was 44 when he enlisted, that he was tall and dark complected, and was a carpenter by trade. He enlisted in April of 1864, was captured at the battle of Marks Mills in Arkansas and was marched to Camp Ford and was dead by October. He is buried in a National Cemetery in Pineville Louisiana. I made a point to go there too. He was not listed on the record there meant to help make finding grave sites easier. But Steve found it back in the corner,one of the older graves in the cemetery. Yes, Sampson's grave was there in spite of being left off the "helpful" list. We left some flowers, a note in the record book suggesting they update it and include Sampson in it, and then headed back to South Carolina. I don't know if any other of his descendants have been to his grave, but I have. I wondered what he must have thought as he lay dying alone and far from home. I wondered if he worried that he would be lost and forgotten, if his family would ever know what became of him. I know they did eventually learn of his death , his wife Lydia petitioned for her widows pension, and William Hook, the man who as a friend of the family vouched for her having been married to Sampson was to become her own daughter Sarah's father in law and one of my own great great great grandfathers when Sarah married his son William Bernard Hook, I even have a picture of him and William Bernard too, Sarah eventually divorced him...I wonder if I will ever know why? I do know that Sampson was not forgotten and I think it pleases him to know that even now 140 years and 5 generations later he is still thought of, loved and remembered.

Sturm und Drang in South Kakalaka

2010-11-15T05:08:00.000-08:00

So Steve and I were sitting at Five Guys last night enjoying a tasty cheeseburger when all of a sudden Steve says "Oh Crap!" "What, WHAT?" I say...Steve then tells me that he just realized his high year of tenure, the magical thirty years that mark his retirement date from the military will fall a few months short of a full three year tour in Germany. SO this means there is a good chance we will NOT be able to go. All bets are off, but because his assignments come out of the Chiefs group and not the general enlisted assignment system, they play by a different set of rules and he may still be as eligible as we had originally thought before the Five Guys Epiphany. We wont know till Monday, and even then I will not trust the answer what ever it is. The Air Force has a remarkable way to make things work when they want them to. The general rules may not apply here at all, or may be waived "in the best interest of the Air Force" Or they may well say in Air Forcese "Sucks to be You" They are pretty good at that last one...

Well its Monday morning and the answer so far is "no, you cannot move" So now thoughts have turned from beer and bratwurst to buying a big ol island for my kitchen to make it more user friendly and finding a reputable rat terrier breeder...

By the way, anybody recognize the castle? You should! The bridge was washed out and we had to stay the night...

Aloha Oy!

2010-11-12T08:13:00.000-08:00

I finally did it. I finally began working on my Aloha Album. Its a bit of a risky move because I did a complete 180 on my choice of background fabric for the quilt. In the picture of the completed quilt that comes with the pattern you can see that they chose a pale honey colored fabric. My choice is pictured above. It's a fabric line called Stonehenge, and I chose the color way called flint.

One of the things I thought was most beautiful in Hawaii were the lava rock structures and walls you find there, or the lava fields on the big Island with ferns and plants just starting to grow. Plants show their tropical colors more vividly against the dark lava and that was what I was hoping to capture. Its not as simple as swapping out backgrounds though, as I am coming to find out. First how do you trace a pattern on dark fabric? With white transfer paper, I have learned. Also one of the keys to a good quilt is controlling contrast in the fabrics to make them do what you want them to do. My overall objective was for a high contrast quilt, that's easier to do on a light background. So I have spent the $100 for my flint fabric, now its my job to turn it into what I had envisioned. I will have to choose brighter and lighter fabrics than I had intended, I sure hope my gamble pays off. Wish me luck!

Chubby Cheeks

2010-11-09T07:03:00.000-08:00

Well, after what just happened I had to write about it on my blog...

I was upstairs in the FROG (Family Room Over Garage) doing my exercises when I heard an unusual commotion coming from Mr. Humphries cage. Its unusual because Hamsters are nocturnal and Mr. Humphries barely stirs when she hears me in the room during the day. The noise coming from her cage this morning was remarkable for its volume and length, enough of a fuss to make me quit my exercise routine to go see what was happening.

What I found was Mr. Humphries dangling from between the rungs of a little bird ladder in her cage leading from the bottom to one of the platforms. She was hanging not from her paws, but from her over stuffed cheek pouches! I guess she got a case of the midnight munchies, stepped out for a little nibble and decided to take a load of tidbits and bedding back to her upstairs house she has been sleeping in lately. She must have lost her footing on the ladder, slipped through until she got hung up on her chubby cheeks. Good thing I was in the room when it happened! When I looked over all I saw was a bulging hamster mouth, slightly agape with bedding poking out from between her teeth. I wish I had taken a picture, but it would have been cruel to leave her hanging by her face while I went looking for a camera. So I did the right thing, lowered the ladder and let her free herself. She made her way back to her house, taking the longer but less treacherous route and I went back to my pilates ring. While I am sorry for any trauma the incident brought to dear Mr. Humphries, I can't help but wonder what good things are in store for me on a day like this with a start like that!

Kit's block

2010-11-06T21:33:00.000-07:00

When you move around as much as I have you have the chance to meet lots of people, not all of them are keepers. Some are interesting and are good company while you are with them, but when you go, you leave them where you found them and move on to the next place and the people who inhabit it. Once in a while though you do encounter a "keeper" someone who's value far exceeds the trouble of keeping in touch. I have found a few keepers along the way and you know who you are...One of them is my friend Kit from Omaha. She is as smart and as talented a person as you are likely to find. She is pretty and funny and has a dry wit that would be the envy of any Englishman. She is the one who first showed me what good applique work could look like, I still see in my minds eye the half finished applique quilt she showed me once and the startling blue bow that she had so finely worked that accented the floral applique...it was love at first sight. As a going away gift she gave me several fat quarters of fabric to begin my own applique project.

Funny how things come full circle...Now eight years later, I mentioned to Kit that I was looking for a pattern book for an applique masterpiece called The Little Brown Bird. I had decided that the time was nearly at hand for me to begin work on something of that magnitude, but finding the book was proving difficult. She said she thought she had the book on her shelf and since her body is in full blown mutiny she knew she would not ever make the quilt and wanted me to have the book. So she sent it to me and in return I promised to work one of the blocks from the book for her. She chose the rose basket block . I was so glad she did, because it was the one I wanted to do most of all. I was eager to try my hand at one of the blocks to see if I had the right stuff for this level of work. I think I do...what do you all think?

This one is for Junie

2010-11-02T11:41:00.000-07:00

Autumn is my favorite time of year. The leaves on the little maple tree in our front yard are just turning red, and there is a nip in the air first thing in the morning that makes me wonder if its time to turn on our heaters. I missed Autumn while I lived in Hawaii, at least the autumn that I had always known, of leaves turning colors, days cold enough to want a jacket, but warm enough that you could manage without one or the smell of wood smoke in the air. But for what Hawaii lacks in those sorts of autumnal delights it makes up for with the constant need to rake up dead leaves. I grew to hate the plumeria tree that grew in our front yard. Our neighborhood was a tidy one, and when I neglected to pick up after my dirty tree the neighbors did it for me, and nothing shamed me more. I resented having to pick up leaves year round. Other than the wonderfully sweet smelling flowers the only thing that Plumeria tree was good for was helping me pretend that Autumn had come to O'ahu. On nights when the wind kicked up I could hear the dead leaves scraping along the concrete of our driveway, and if I lowered the thermostat on the A/C a few more degrees I could almost convince myself that it was cold outside and the autumn leaves were rustling. As my time there grew I did actually learn to perceive the change in seasons. Its subtle, but its there. Still nothing beats a little fall color when you are deprived, so this post is for June, Enjoy the color and if you get a rainy day, make a pot of tea , lower your A/C enough to want a sweater,listen to the dead plumeria leaves rustling around outside and pretend you are snug in a house nestled in some autumn woods.

Gifts from My sister

2010-11-01T11:57:00.000-07:00

Imagine my surprise when the doorbell rang the day before my birthday and what I found was this

gourmet Chocolate Birthday Cake, sent to me by my sister and her family! I ask you what could be better than finding a chocolate cake on your doorstep? We put it in the Fridge and waited for my Birthday and had it for desert after my birthday dinner out with our friends the Craines, Steve and Paula pictured above. It was delicious and even with four of us feasting on it we had enough left over to have a second slice the next day. Good thing that finished it off though, or I would have kept on eating it and undoing what little good I have done recently in an effort to fit back into my pants.

I titled this entry "Gifts from my sister " because you can just barely see the turquoise necklace and earrings I am wearing in the picture. They were also a gift from my sister last Christmas. She made them herself which makes them all the more dear to me, not to mention they are the perfect match for my new turquoise shirt!

Thanks to my sister my birthday was everything it should have been, a great dinner, a cold beer, good company and CHOCOLATE CAKE!

The quilt top is finished!

2010-10-28T11:36:00.000-07:00

Here it is, the finished family tree/diary quilt that I have been blogging about for the last several months. I think it looks pretty good, what do you all think? Of course it's not finished yet. I sent it to my long arm quilter who will quilt it on her special machine and then I will add the binding a rod pocket on the back so I can hang it on a wall. The bottom right block is actually an envelope pocket and inside I will put a key to the meaning of the quilt blocks. I have it already printed on a piece of fabric that I will fold up and keep inside so that years from now somebody will have the fun of deciphering it.

Bright Hope

2010-10-26T10:13:00.000-07:00

This block is called Bright Hope. I think its the perfect choice for one of Zach's blocks because we are certainly full of many bright hopes for him and his future. They are well founded too. Sally Gotilla a dear friend of Steve's from way back said when she first saw Zach as a baby that he was kissed by Angels, and so he still seems to be. He is doing well in school and growing into a hardworking responsible adult. He makes us proud all the time, and even better, he makes us laugh! He is a funny man...I almost typed boy but then thought better of it. He has earned the right to be called a man through his hard work and smart choices. He is a wonderful son and his dad and I could not be more pleased with him! The best part of all is that we hear good things about him from people he has encountered. They all say generally the same thing, that they are impressed with the quality of his character and that he is a fine young man. I got to experience this first hand over the summer. We had gone to the Sears where he works for Family and Friends night. I was in the ladies department shopping when I looked up and saw him rolling down the aisle singing to himself as he pushed a dolly in front of him. He did not see me right away, so I know his bonhomie was genuine and he was happy to be at work doing his job. I knew why his co-workers liked him, I would like working along side somebody with that attitude too! Knowing that he is making good choices for no other reason than they are the right thing to do, even when he never expects us to know about them give me confidence that our bright hopes for Zachary are well founded indeed.

Jaime the Tiger

2010-10-24T10:22:00.000-07:00

This is probably my favorite block in the quilt. It certainly is the most personal block! I designed it myself and know that Mom and Zach would recognize it instantly! Mom came to the Netherlands to visit when Zach was not quite a year old. She wanted to give him his first birthday present while we were there and she knew she wanted it to be a stuffed tiger like the one in Calvin and Hobbes Since we thought Zach would be a lot like Calvin...boy we were right about that! We searched in every town we visited for a toy tiger. We had covered almost all of the Netherlands and had all but given up. We had seen toy tigers, but none of them had that Je ne sais quoi that we were looking for. Finally on the last day of her trip we stopped in the toy store in Barneveld, the one closest to our house and there he was...the tiger we had searched the width and breadth of the Netherlands to find, in our own back yard! We snapped him up and took him home. Mom pulled out the tiger and held him up in front of Zach and we watched in utter delight as the smile spread across Zach's face and ended in an all out giggling fit of laughter. It truly was love at first sight! Zach latched on to that tiger and has not let go yet. Of course Jaime is living with us in SC and not in Zach's room at the Frat house, but we all know Zach will never let go of Jaime!

How did he come to be called Jaime you might ask and I have the convoluted answer to that question. My sister's nickname as a baby was tiger, her given name is Jamie, but in New Mexico there is a male hispanic name that is spelled very closely...Jaime ( prounounced hi-me) so naturally Jamie was often mistakenly and sometimes purposefully called Jaime and so it sort of stuck...so when Zach had a tiger we naturally gave it Jamies other nickname as its own name, clear as mud right?

Baby Bunting

2010-10-22T10:03:00.000-07:00

This block is called Baby Bunting and was an easy choice for my Zach. I still remember bringing him home from the Dutch hospital where he was born. Steve and I put him in the car seat and strapped him in...it seemed strange to put such a tiny baby in such a big chair, his little head flopped over...Its a good thing that one of the shower gifts we received was a little cushion to put in car seats to support newborns over sized heads. I found out only recently that he was born in the shadow of the church where a pair of his ancestors were wed well over 400 years before. I wish I had known that then...

Thank goodness we had friends in the Netherlands, the Van De Glinds, the Paardekoopers, and our American friends the Polings, all who had experience with babies, something neither Steve nor I did. Both being the youngest in our own families, this was as up close and personal to a baby we had ever been! There is nothing like being thrown in the deep end to teach you how to swim and we were in well over our heads! But we managed and I think on the whole did a pretty decent job. We did it with a minumum of gadgets too. We bought a second hand crib before we left Clovis, we were given a second hand high chair and an old fashioned baby swing that you crank up by hand. The only things new were the play pen, the stroller and the car seat. Our shopping for baby stuff was severely limited. The BX on Soesterberg was small and had very little in the way of baby goods, and the Dutch stuff was out of our price range, so we did without all the bells and whistles. I did not even realize it until we moved back to the States and I saw all the baby stuff we had gotten by without. At the time I was a little disapointed to not have been able to play with all the gadgets, but you know instead of waisting time on baby gadgets I got to play with the baby instead and that was deffinately the better deal.

Z is for Zachary

2010-10-19T09:44:00.000-07:00

This block is the Signal Flag design for the letter Z- Z for Zachary! I remember the exact moment when we chose the name Zachary for our still yet to be born baby. For some reason I never chose a girls name, only a boys. I did not know till he was born that he was a boy, the ultrasounds never showed us one way or the other, still I must have known because in my mind he was always a he and never a she.

We were at our own going away party hosted by Steve's office at Cannon AFB. It was at the restaurant above the bar at Western Skies, that then turned into China Star before burning down...We were sitting at the table talking over possible names and when the name Zachary came up we all liked it because it had the same hard ch that is in Wachter, and then Caroline Sherman said " I can hear it now...Zach Wachter...."and that was it. No need to look further, we had found the name. I hope he likes it...Having a name you like is a good thing. My name has been interpreted to mean Battle Maiden, at first I was not sure about that, but it has grown on me, seeing I have had a few battles to fight, its good I have the name for it. My friend Naomi gave me my name in Hawaiin, she took it from the literal translations of Wahine Koa to a more poetic and infinately more fun to say Kawahinewiwo'ole Which means fearless woman.

Zachary's name means Remembered by God. Since he was our one an only after my chemotherapy, I think he was remembered by God and he still is. I know because it's been repeatedly demonstrated throughout his 19 years. I tell him that good fortune follows him where ever he goes, but it would be more accurate to say that God remembers him where ever he goes.

Humilty

2010-10-15T07:19:00.000-07:00

This block was chosen for Steve and is called Hither and Yon. I think it was an obvious choice for someone who has built a career on traveling the world. Steve has over the years collected flags from the countries he has been to. I stopped counting at 30...His job certainly has taken him hither and yon, and I have tagged along for a good part of it. He has been to places that I will never go though, like Korea, Guam, United Arab Emerates, Turkey, Bosnia, Iceland...the list goes on and on. If he gets the job in DC, and we should know within the next few months, his list of 30 or more countries is likely to grow even more!

While the block is called Hither and Yon, my blog post is called Humility for one glaring reason...I messed this block up and did not realize it until it was in the quilt. I could have ripped it out, fixed it and put it back but that would have taken a day or more. So I opted in on an old quilting tradition called a "Humility Block" Its a block that is intentionally done wrong lest the quilt maker, full of hubris, should make an atempt at perfection, something only God can do. Now technically the block was not done wrong on purpose, but I did discover it in time to fix it and chose not to, so I am laying claim to the Humility block excuse on those grounds. If you look at the two blue and white triangles, you will see that one is supposed to be opposite the other and not identical. But its in the quilt now and so it will stay, my homage to humility.

Steve's Anglican compass rose

2010-10-12T09:31:00.000-07:00

This block was originally going to be the Episcopal Shield, but with the way the Episcopal Church is moving away from our beloved Anglican three legged stool of Scripture, Tradition and Reason to a very unsteady unicylce of reason alone, I discussed it with Steve and he and I opted to make a block featuring the Anglican Compass Rose instead. Its fitting since Steve is attending an essentially Anglican Seminary. I could not do a series of blocks about Steve and not include one that represents his faith, Anyone who knows him at all knows he is a man of faith. He has been studying the Anglican theologians of the reformation recently and the Via Media that they espoused keeps coming up. Steve being the quintisential Anglican has been encouraged toward ordination by both Bishop Spong on the far left and Bishop Kelshaw firmly on orthodox ground, a "manifest token" as Hooker would say that Steve has found the via media!

Trip to the Altar

2010-10-12T09:01:00.000-07:00

This block is called Trip to the Altar and I chose it to represent my marriage to Steve.
Last night while we were getting ready for bed I thought about my upcoming birthday. I will turn 44 this month, and I realized I have spent more years with Steve that without him. Its a strange thing when you think about it, hitching your life to another persons...especially if that person is from New Jersey! We just got back from a wedding in New Jersey, our niece Kelly who attended our own wedding when she was twelve finally tied the not with her significant other Lou.
I remember my first trip to New Jersey to meet Steve's family, it was surreal to say the least. Steve comes from a large family and when you add in spouses and children and the occasional cousin or family of the in laws and long time friends the crowd can be overwhelming. Not to mention sitting in a crowd of people all talking with thick New Joisy accents. Now, having spent the last 22 years in the family I feel less of an outsider at the gatherings. I know who everybody is, and I have been to the familiar places in New Jersey often enough now that it seems less foreign to me. Plus, now that the grand kids have started marrying, I am no longer the newest member of the family, a torch I am happy to finally pass. I wonder who will be the next one to make a trip to the altar? I think the smart money is on our niece Pam and her new boyfriend Ryan!

While we are on the subject of Steve

2010-10-11T08:29:00.000-07:00

I sure won the husband lottery when I married Steve. At the end of my epic Journey this is what I found. he had sent flowers to NM to be there when I got there, a dozen multi colored roses complete with a little recorded message that played when you pressed the white spot on the heart. It was a beautiful surprise and the roses lasted for days and days reminding me of what a good guy I married. There was another bouquet too! My Mom, before Steve's roses came bought some yell0w roses,my favorite! So when I went into the room that was mine for the next two months there was another big bouquet looking so perfect I doubted they were real and had to take a closer look. What a treat to be showered with roses! I tell you nothing makes you feel more special than unexpected flowers! The best are the ones that come to the door completely unexpected. The doorbell rings and you are annoyed because you look like hell and don't want to answer it, but you do because it could be important...and there they stand with a bouquet of flowers just for you. Its like being queen for a day, no?

Born in the USA

2010-10-08T08:16:00.000-07:00

I tease Steve a lot calling him a first generation American or a Canadian. This because his mother was Canadian and moved south as a child and became a naturalized citizen as a young adult. Recently Canada amended its laws and as a result Steve is eligible for Canadian citizenship. But you really cannot find a more true blue American. He gets sappy when they play the National Anthem and he has had a life long fascination with Washington DC and the American Presidency, it almost borders on obsession! He has been told to cease and desist by the secret service more than once! Its actually not as sinsiter as it sounds, but it is true. Once in DC a secret service guy who was clearing the road for a presidential motorcade told Steve he could not talk to him "because as it says on my hat, its SECRET!" Shortly after George W rolled by in his limo and smiled and waved right to us as we stood on the street corner. But better still was the time when the secret service singled him out in Hawaii, noting that they had spotted him in the throng more than once when president elect Obama was coming out of the gym at KMCB. Steve cannot be faulted though, Obama should not have singled him out for a handshake and brief conversation the first time, thereby encouraging Steve to return again with his camera and son hoping for another such encounter. When the Secret Service guy pulled Steve aside and told him he "was starting to get noticed, and not in a good way" Steve decided to leave off stalking the president. A good choice I think.

Home is where the Air Force sends me

2010-10-01T07:49:00.000-07:00

First let me start by apologizing for the sideways picture. Sometimes my camera and computer do things without being told to and I have not figured out how to undo the damage. Its much easier to beg forgivness than to figure out how to fix it.

This is the last of the blocks that represent me. I chose a wee house because I am such a homebody. I have heard people complain about being stuck at home, bored because there was nothing to do. I just cannot fathom that. There is always something for me to do at my house. I may be tired, or restless, frustrated, but never bored. I genuinely like being at home, and I have had plenty of them too! I have lived in no less than 16 houses/apartments, 10 towns, 6 states and three countries. I am not counting all the extended stays in hotels and billeting between moves! The weird thing is that no matter if I am living in stairwell houseing in Europe, a Hale in Kailua, or a split level duplex in Nebraska, my house has always felt like home to me. The one constant is the china cabinet. We have changed our furniture over the years, but not the china cabinet. Its been with us for almost our entire marriage and has been in 9 of my 16 homes. We even hang our Christmas stockings from the knobs of the china cabinet. Some of our homes have had fireplaces, and some have not, but they all had the china cabinet! All this moving around has surely taught me that Home is what and where I make it. Its been easy up till now. Without Zach this house somehow does not quite cut it, even with the china cabinet. I am looking forward to his visit in a few months and wonder if this new place he has never seen will feel like home to him at all. I know it will at least finally feel like it to me.

Guess Who's coming to Dinner?

2010-09-28T11:47:00.000-07:00

When we lived in Lubbock Steve took part time Job at Dimba's Chick-n-Sea. That's how we came to know Stellah and Alex Dimba. They were born and raised in Kenya, but both emigrated as young adults and met each other in America. We lived only a block apart, so Stellah and I started exercising together every morning. We grew to be good friends those 3 years we lived in Lubbock and so now whenever we pass through Lubbock we stop at Dimba's for a bite to eat and a chance to see our old friends. This summer was no exception. Zach and I had gone to Lubbock to spend a day shopping and we stopped in to see the Dimba's and that was when we made plans to join them for dinner at that their house when we went back to Lubbock a week later to pick Steve up at the Air Port. They have cousins who live in Lubbock and they were coming over for dinner too. We had gathered around the kitchen helping to prepare the meal when we saw the cousins pull up in their car. Little Kia, pictured above with Stellah and her daughter Connie came tearing into Auntie Stellah's house. She turned to look and saw me, Steve and Zach standing there and she shrieked "There's White People in there!" and ran right back out to her mother. There was a pregnant pause in the house as what had happened soaked in and then almost as if on cue we all busted up laughing! Poor Kia, somebody really ought to have warned her. She was quite traumatized and cried for several minutes, I think more of embarrassment than anything. Once the shock wore off she was dancing around the house as if nothing ever happened. I bet she remembers us for a long time, I know I will never forget her!

Where the Buffalo Roam

2010-09-23T11:58:00.000-07:00

Growing up on the flat, crispy eastern side of New Mexico I got used to people complaining that it was ugly. Mind you, the locals never said that, it was always coming from somebody who grew up around trees and running water. They had a fixed notion of beauty and to their unaccustomed eyes the beauty of the llano estacado was not readily apparent. But those of us raised on the high plains knew there was beauty to be seen in all 360 glorious degrees. What I could not have realized until I left the plains was how much I would miss being able to see all around me, my view never impinged upon by a mountain or forest. I could not have known how very claustrophobic I would feel when my line of sight was slashed to ribbons by trees zipping by as I traveled down a road, or how frustrated I would get when I would catch a glimpse of something I wanted to see better but never could because the road led me down into a valley, the object of my curiosity cut off every time...

When I go home I revel in the austere landscape. The beauty there is sublime, and always rewards the one who bothers to look, a sunflower caught in the last rays of the sun, Johnson grass silhouetted against a variegated sky are easy even for the uninitiated to recognize as beautiful, but consider the chartreuse buffalo gourd nestled in velvety taupe colored leaves, that is also the beauty of the llanoEstacado. Its there, just waiting for you to open your eyes and see it.

Let me count the ways

2010-09-20T13:33:00.000-07:00

Ok, this one is pretty much a no brainier and I will thank those of you in the peanut gallery to stifle your snickering. Yes its a crazy quilt block but it actually represents me on many levels, not just the obvious one; let me count the ways...

1.The center block features Keys, my nickname is Kee, so there.

2. Each seam is embellished, I am and have always been a Lilly guilder, if a little is good, more is not nearly enough, any of you who have seen my Christmas tree know that I am speaking truth and light.

3.My first real attempt at quilting was a crazy quilt.

4. My first brush with quilting greatness was Judith Baker Montano and a Crazy quilt Conference in Omaha. I could not afford to attend, but a Friend got me through the door because I volunteered to be a gopher...I got to chat up Judith for a while, we talked about kids, not quilts interestingly enough. JBM by the way literally wrote the book on crazy quilting. Another name well know in the Crazy quilt world is Betty Pillsbury, she lived across the street from me for 4 years while we were stationed at Offutt AFB in Omaha. I actually got to sit in on her class on ribbon embroidery at the conference, and that is about all the time I spent with her in all those 4 years. We waved from across the street when we were outside at the same time but nothing more...

5. And of course there is the crazy thing...both the good kind and the bad. The good kind that lets me cut loose and have a good time, and the bad that riddles me with anxiety over the dumbest things...

All in all its probably the most accurate of all the blocks I chose for myself, but in the interest of full disclosure, I need to tell you that I had to actually make another crazy block for my quilt. The one pictured above would have been perfect but in a fit of distracted zeal I trimmed it too small, slicing the seam allowance clean off...making the do-over block that will actually be in the quilt even more an accurate representation of me, since "oh crap" seems to hang in the air around me as I sew almost all the time.

Boomerang

2010-09-14T10:54:00.000-07:00

I was going through a period of self discovery several years ago and was talking to Steve about what I ought to focus my attention on. I have dabbled in so many things that I enjoy I was not getting really good at any of them. I have tried to learn something new everywhere we go, its just a way for me to keep stretching myself. Some of them have stayed with me and others I have let go. Its been a good plan pretty much, giving me a great breadth of experience, if not so much depth. But if I were to master something, what would it be? That's the question I put to Steve and what he said really resonated with me " You always come back to quilting." He was right, no matter what I dabble in, I always come back to quilting. So a block in my diary/family tree quilt about my love for quilting had to make the cut. As I was looking through the Diary quilt book at the quilts pictured in the book, all made by various quilters I laughed at how many of them included a pin cushion block in their own quilt. I guess it's a motif that speaks to all quilters, even fresh, new aspiring quilters.

This summer I had the pleasure of coaching my niece Brandy through her first quilting project. We went to the store to lay in supplies and headed to the notions department, a place I have loved all my life. There we pored over all the notions, the tape measures and seam rippers and hem gauges choosing the things a beginning quilter would need. Then came time to choose a pin cushion...there were two choices, the classic tomato with strawberry emery, or a new design, a big colorful five petaled flower. I waited and watched while Brandy made her choice, I really did think she would go for the big bold flower, but no...much to my delight she opted in on tradition and went for the classic, that bodes well for the little grasshopper, she chose well!

Return of the Swamp Thing

2010-09-12T06:00:00.000-07:00

Those of you who did not grow up in the desert southwest ( that's pretty much just you Junie) may be unfamiliar with the hulking contraption pictured above. In the vernacular it's known as a Swamp Cooler, but is more properly called an "Evaporative Cooler" When I was growing up all the houses had one perched on the roof. Forget Memorial Day as the start of summer, for us it was the servicing of the swamp cooler that heralded the months of summer fun. Its a pretty simple machine; a pump pumps water up to a six armed manifold called a spider that then drizzles the water over fiber mats that line the walls of the cooler, a belt driven fan then draws the air cooled by evaporation down into the duct work of the house and out blows nice cool air. It theory it works...but mechanical failures are frequent, and low humidity is a must. Back in the day we knew how to fix our cooler ourselves and often did, replacing the pump, pads, float valves, spider and belt as needed...but years of living away, I had thought I lost my mad swamp cooler skills. But that proved not to be entirely true, I still managed to replace some parts and I would have been able to claim a complete victory, but the belt was slipping and Mom had to call in the repairman after all, but I got 2 out of three! Still the days of the swamp cooler are numbered. More and more people are installing refrigerated air units and even though I will miss the ego boosts that come from vanquishing the Swamp Thing I am looking forward to an A/C . Those trips up the ladder and onto the roof are getting scarier with each passing year!

Sunshine and Shadow

2010-09-10T06:31:00.000-07:00

Now that I have done blocks that represent my ancestry, and my extended family, Its time to move a little closer to home...well a lot closer actually. This is the first block I chose to do to represent me. Its called Sunshine and Shadow. I chose it because my life has been a pretty good mix of both good and bad. As I was thinking on it though I came to realize there are not many in this world, if indeed any at all, who could not say the same thing. We all have our sunshine and shadows. For me, my biggest shadows were losing my dad way too soon, and then an ongoing decades old relationship with cancer. Of course that one also falls in the sunshine column, for who when once diagnosed with cancer would not want to have decades to deal with it, rather years or months. But there are things that land solidly in the sunshine camp, things like my family, my friends and my marriage to a very good man, and our son who makes us proud on a daily basis. I had 14 years with Milford, the best dog ever and a chance to travel the world and live in some amazing places, so when it all shakes out, I can happily say I have had more sunshine than shadow, and hope that is true for all the people I love.

My Epic Journey

2010-09-07T10:14:00.000-07:00

A view of my Command Module in the Clubman

Anyone who knows me even just a little knows I don't like to drive. Being a one car family for most of my married life, I did not log a lot of hours behind the wheel and consequently my skill and confidence slowly deteriorated. That all began to change when after five long years we bought the car I had been jones'n for. (or should that read "for which I had been Jones'n)

My little Mini Clubman has got me back on the road and in a big way! Of course it helps that my family is almost all the way across the continent from where I am. That is about the only thing that would motivate me to get behind the wheel of my car and start my epic journey. I drove all the way from South Cackalacka to New Mexico all by myself, a huge undertaking made even more monumental by my deep seated aversion to doing it.

Steve tabbed the road atlas and punched in my addresses in the garmin, I packed up the Clubman including a celebratory bottle of beer to be enjoyed in the hotel in Memphis after my first leg of the journey and off I went. I did fine, not a single glitch or wrong turn. I have to say the weirdest part of the whole journey was stopping for meals and eating by myself...If that's all I have to dread, who knows I may do it again! But for now, I have my eyes on a quilt shop in Charleston. I will just leave the beer in the fridge though and drink it when I get home.

For Ireland

2010-09-03T13:57:00.000-07:00

When I was deciding on a block for my Irish roots naturally I thought "Irish Chain!" But the thing with Irish chain blocks is that they really need their neighbors to get the full feel of the pattern. I worried that nobody but me would know that it was an Irish chain block, since it would be standing alone. So what do you do when you want to make something look more Irish than it already does? You slap a shamrock on it of course! I had just learned how to paint on fabrics using oil pastels and I was eager to try it and this provided the perfect opportunity. Not bad for my first time.

Now on to our Irish roots. We have Irish blood in our veins to be sure. Granny said her grandfather was a "full blooded A'rshman" And on Papa's side of the family are the O'Neils, but the family I have been able to trace back the farthest are the Rileys. Grandma Gertrude was a Riley, and this particular branch traces all the way back to the very first Riley's who settled in Colonial America in the Chesapeake bay area. We all knew we had plenty of Irish blood, and we've got the freckles to prove it and I would not be surprised if there are some late comers; refugee's from the potato famine dotting our family tree, but most of our Irish heritage goes back much much further. The family lore that I heard from Uncle Bob, who heard it from his Grandpa Ez Riley was that the Riley's were miners in Ireland and they were recruited to come to America to take advantage of the huge coal deposits. Most of them settled in Kentucky, so perhaps there is a grain of truth to the story. Of course Ezra is also the man who says he was such a skilled Horse trader that he was asked to depart (read banned) from Kentucky. Thats what brought him to Missouri where he met and married Nell Banta. If Grandpa Ezra was such a smooth talker it actually lends more credence not less to the stories of his Irish ancestors. After all, isn't that what we are know for?

What to do for England

2010-08-31T13:54:00.000-07:00

When choosing the blocks for my ancestors, I was stumped by what to do for England. I thought English Patchwork, but no, that was the technique I used for Granny's block, and I wanted something different. I finally settled on a Tudor rose not because we have any major Tudor connections, but because its such a quintessentially English motif.

When I was searching out my English ancestors I was not surprised to find a healthy dose of them. I think they are neck and neck with the Dutch as far as how many there are, maybe they even out number the Nederlanders by a few. They are an interesting lot too. Among my English ancestors are Brewsters, and though they did not come over on the Mayflower, they most likely are related to those who did. There is also the interesting case of Nathaniel Ingersoll and Sarah Rice of Salem Massachusetts. They were not related to each other, but both are related to me. Nathaniel in his roll as town magistrate actually brought charges of witchcraft against Sarah for which she was jailed, but thankfully not executed...those wacky Puritans! Speaking of Purtians, you know the famous statue of the Purtian Deacon Samuel Chapin by Agustus St. Gauden, well, he's ours too!...Chapin, not St. Gauden that is. I wonder if my usual love of ancestral foods will make me crave black pudding...nope...aint gonna happen, not even on my birthday.

Dutchman's Puzzle

2010-08-29T12:14:00.000-07:00

The Dutchman's Puzzle was chosen for all my Dutch ancestors. In one of those funny little things God likes to do, he plopped me down in the middle of the Netherlands. That's where we were when our son Zach was born . In the very town of Amersfoort that almost 400 years earlier his own ancestors lived and died. Wolphert Gerrets Van Couevenhoven married his wife Neeletje in the church who's shadow we rested in on our trips into town, indeed I have the tower of that very Church worked in Cross stitch tucked away somewhere. We greeted Sinter Klaas at the Koppleport where the Couevenhovens owned a bleaching camp. I lived there for 3 and half years never realizing that I was about as Dutch as a person could get! I wish I had known then that I shared in the history of that amazing little country. We were quite at home there and as with Germany I felt an instant affinity to the people and the food. I also felt a strange connection with the place too. There were times, when I would be overcome with such a strange sense of de ja vu that I found it unsettling and inexplicable! Now I know that maybe it was the hum of genetic memory stirring within. While we have personal reasons for loving Amersfoort, we have links all over the Netherlands, in Utrecht, Gelderland, Friesland too. Our Dutch names are many...Banta, Terhune, Brickers, Fonda,De Ruine,Van Der Stratton,Van Arsdale, Van Houten,Van Der Beek, Van Nuyse,Voorheese, Hegeman and many more. I must not forget our Huegonot forebears who fled to The Netherlands from France, Denyce, Demarest and most notably Jan DeMandeville who was a Doctor in Seventeenth century Nijmegen who eventually succumbed to the plague he was battling. So beloved was he by the town that after he passed they payed to put two of his sons through college and they were named Town Physicians.

Our Dutch roots in America run long and deep, over 15 generations ago our ancestors came with Bedford Stuyvesant and helped him settle New Amsterdam. I like knowing that. I like knowing that my American heritage is my Dutch heritage and vice versa. I wish I had known it while I was living in The Netherlands!

A Nod to Germany

2010-08-25T11:09:00.000-07:00

Twice now I have lived in places to which I actually have ancestral ties. I don't mean I lived in the general vicinity, I mean I trod the very streets that my ancestors did over 300 years ago! This may not mean much to Europeans who do it all the time, but for an American, and a westerner and descendant of pioneers that is a rare occurance. Antiquity of that variety is a novelty to us. We either have the very ancient, or the brand new, those are usually our only choices.

Once such place was in Germany. I did not know it then, but I could have gone to the town hall in Kaiserslautern and looked up the records of my own family. We have a lot of German ancestry. Maybe that's why I fell instantly in love with the food, so I guess its fitting that I chose the Dresden Plate pattern for my German block. Growing up one of my favorite dishes was chicken fried steak. Who knew it was really a rahm schnitzel in disguise, or the Gesundheit we reflexivly muttered to one another at the sound of sneeze actually meant something.

One of our earliest German Ancestors in America was Johan Jakob Darner who emigrated from the Rhineland Pfalz in the early 1700s and settled near Fredrick Maryland on a tract of land he named after his home in Germany, "Landau". He is one among many though. We also can lay claim to belonging to the Beiser, Sturm, Pfuster,Sauer,Werneich,Gah, Gloss and Strihl,Specht, Yost, and Everhart families just to name a few. Many more go unidentified. But we carry within us evidence of their existance. Its in our blond hair, our celtic skins, our love of pork and beer and the instant familiarity I felt with Germany . I wonder if Jamie felt it too? So now when we say Gesundheit its more than just a vestige of our German ancestory, it really means something. So Gesundheit- Good health to you!

My Family Tree

2010-06-27T11:53:00.000-07:00

The next few blocks on my quilt represent my family tree. It's grown over recent years from a sketchy sapling to an enormous thing so full of branches and leaves I can scarcely keep track. Its been very rewarding learning about my family and their places in history.

My Mom and I at first flush seem to be a lot alike, and in many respects we are, but there are certain points in our personalities where we clearly took divergent paths. Once such place is with our family history. Mom is no more interested in what her ancestors where up to than she is with the latest plot twists on daytime Television drama. Both are equally uninteresting to her. While I on the other hand find the little tidbits of history that I can tie into my own family story to be more captivating than anything Luke and Laura ever did. As mystified as she is with my intense interest in my family history I am equally astounded by her utter indifference to it all. Maybe because I have always been a history buff it appeals to me to be able to plug in the names of people I am descended from to actual moments in history, making me less of a spectator and more a participant in all those amazing events I was taught about in school. I revel in that connectedness and sink into it like cozy chair. Maybe that's the same reason I have always liked the doctrine of the Communion of saints, I am comforted to know I belong and have a place among them, both the saints and my family, and hopfully they are most often one and the same!

Birds revisited

2010-06-22T07:42:00.000-07:00

I have been enchanted with birds lately. Maybe its the warm weather bringing new and interesting visiters to my yard, or maybe I am developing an eye for spotting who has been there all along. I know that happens. I can spot sea glass at 10 paces now, when before it practically had to jump up and shout "Here I am" before I noticed it. I think maybe its a little of both. In just the past few weeks I have been treated to a rainbow of birds. The two pictured above are among my current favorites. The Eastern Towhee, and the eastern Bluebird. The Bluebird might as well have jumped up and shouted "Here I am" It flew to a trellis a few yards from the back door where I stood and perched there long enough for me to get bored looking at it. Maybe I should have relished the moment more, he has not been back since and I wonder if I will get a chance to see him again. I will keep the feeder filled and the binoculars at the ready just in case.

Spending other people's money

2010-06-19T09:10:00.000-07:00

The other day I got to indulge in a rare treat that I find I really enjoy. Its spending other people's money. I have done it before, most memorably a few Christmas's ago with my Friend June. We were browsing the Christmas displays at Macy's in Kane'ohe when she decided then and there to live out one of my dearest fantasies. She decided to update her Christmas tree with all new ornaments and she took me along for the ride! Having chosen a Chinese theme She and I circled the displays picking out multiples of the ornaments we liked. We pawed through the branches of the display trees to see if we were missing anything fabulous and if we were we snapped it up and added it to the basket. I have always wanted to buy Christmas ornaments that way, but never could manage it, so have instead built a lush collection over the years adding one or two really nice ornaments each year. So I had the best of both worlds, my eclectic collection that I would never be able to give up, and the pleasure of planning and shopping for a really posh theme tree.

Just the other day I was blessed with another such opportunity. My friend Kathy lives in a big brick showplace with a drop dead gorgeous crimson dining room. The last time I was at her house we talked about getting together to make a centerpiece for her dining table. The time came when we had a day together and Hobby Lobby was running a sale, so we struck while the iron was hot. Just like June and I had circled those Christmas trees looking for the perfect ornaments, Kathy and I prowled the floral department hunting for just the right stems for her arrangement. After a sizable bill, we left the store with bags of flowers, Kathy I am sure with a slight case of sticker shock and me with a slight case of panic. What if I botched it? What if I just lured her into spending all that money and then couldn't deliver and wound up handing over a big, expensive flower studded embarrassment?! I felt reasonably confident in my abilities, but still, that was a lot of money to be spending for a centerpiece and the pressure was on. As soon as I got home I began work and quickly realized that we had chosen well. The project would be a rousing success. The picture above taken in my dining room does not do it justice. It looks kind of small in the picture but in reality it stood easily 2 feet high and two feet long and was every bit the opulent show stopper that her dining room was made for. I have always wanted to make such an arrangement, but never had the means to fund it, or the house to warrant it. Doing the centerpiece for Kathy's table definitely scratched an itch. When she came by to pick it up she told me that a similar arrangement could sell in her brothers furniture store for 3 times what ours cost. So even though it was not cheap, it was still a bargain and that makes it all the lovelier!

Birds at my Window

2010-06-18T07:15:00.000-07:00

The Dutch artist Marjolein Bastin has done a series for Hallmark called "The Birds at my window" That phrase runs through my mind quite a lot here on Allaire Court North. I call our backyard the wasteland if that give you any indication of its condition. If we were staying we would have laid sod and started landscaping, but since we are renters it seemed silly to put that much money and effort into something that was not ours to keep. So we let Mother Nature have her way back there. the front part closest to the house is sand mixed with crab grass and weeds and the back part is a mini native woodland full of oaks and pines and sticky bushes with which I am not familiar . The whole thing is tied together with Jessamine vines that run throughout. Its the State flower for South Carolina and in the spring the yellow blossoms of the Jessamine cover everything including the back 40 of our wasteland. The one thing we have done to alter nature back there is put in a bird feeder and bird bath next to the bird house that was already in situ. Since Milford is not with us to scare away our customers we have plenty of them. Its been a real pleasure to watch all the wildlife in our yard. We have lots of the more common varieties. There are mourning doves, crows, sparrows and in season there are robins and cowbirds, junco's and chickadees. They are a joy to watch, but the real thrill comes when I catch sight of a flash of color and realize I've spotted a newcomer, somebody I've never noticed before. Here lately the one I look for is the Blue Grosbeak. He and his drab colored bride come and go so quickly I hardly get a good look. That's probably for the best. If he hung around too long the joy of spotting him would undoubtedly diminish in proportion to the length of his stays.

Gone Fishing

2010-06-14T18:39:00.000-07:00

Well, not really. But I am going to be gone for a few days. We are going to our nephew Dan Wachter's graduation from Army Basic training at Fort Benning, Georgia. We will get to spend time with his family who I have not seen in 8 years! It will be a good chance for Steve to reconnect with his big brother Bill. I've never been to an Army function before, so this ought to be interesting. Steve bought an Air Force T shirt and hat to wear to the family day events, just to make it clear which branch we belong to.

And just in case you are wondering the picture above is of a Star of India plant I planted in our back lanai in Hawaii. Maybe I should also post a photograph of one of the crispy weeds in our back yard here in South Cakalaka for you to compare and contrast.

And now for someting completely different

2010-06-04T09:33:00.000-07:00

You can almost smell the wonderful scent of rose wafting through the air can't you! Its a gorgeous blossom too, a fine example. Would you believe me if I told you it was fake? Thats right, this beauty comes to you courtesy of a 40% off coupon at Michaels. Isn't it amazing? I took one look at it in the store and had to have it. I have never seen a more convincing artificial flower ever! The petals even feel velvety in my fingers the way a real rose would. Some of the petals are showing signs of age, and the odd little genetic hicups that real flowers have, a strange color anamoly or an odd shaped petal. The down side is that they are $8 a pop. As good as they are, I cannot justify $8 a piece for artificial flowers. But with judious coupon clipping and redeeming I have accumulated three of these bad boys in pinks and yellows, and I have coupons for three more! Now I need to get some rose scent and the perfect flower basket or vase and the isllusion will be complete!

My sisters choices

2010-06-04T09:09:00.001-07:00

This block is called "Sisters Choice" so it got me thinking about my sister and some of the choices she has made, three in particular, and these are no small choices either. These choices where huge life altering choices. That's the thing with my sister Jamie, the quote" go big or go home" could be the motto blazoned on her crest. She does nothing in a small way, never has really. The first choice was to quit her job to go to London for a week at the request of our Bishop to meet with a very well known and successful Anglican evangelist who wrote about her in one of his books. Mind you, she did not want to quit her job, but that was the ultimatum she was given. "Go to London and you will be fired" So as is her want, she opted to take the path of most resistance and headed off to London. If she had not made that choice she would never have had the chance to make choice number two, adopting two special needs kids, both still in diapers, and raising them together with the help of their grandmother. It was the need to provide for her little family that led to choice number three, as a middle aged new mom to go back to school to get a degree in order to start a second career as a teacher. Any one of these choices would have been remarkable, but the cumulative effect of all three is astounding. Maybe because she has always lived larger than life, she lacks the perspective to see the enormity of the choices she makes. The rest of us see it and it makes our choices trifling by comparison.

Mom's Cake Stand block

2010-06-04T08:47:00.000-07:00

Long before she was the owner of True Confections cake shop Mom was making cakes. I can remember all kinds of wonderful birthday cakes she made for us! Every year she would ask me what sort of cake I wanted and I would say " a three layer cake" and every year she would make a wonderful three layer cake and I would be disappointed because it was not what I had imagined it would be. She finally got to the bottom of it one year and discovered that what I really wanted was a three tiered cake, a very different thing from a three layered cake! So, that year I got it; my first three tiered cake. It was a chocolate cake made of three graduated rectangles, one on top of the next. I loved it! Of course that was in the days before Mom or any of us knew you had to support such cakes internally with plates and dowels...still it only slumped a little ...and was the hit of my party that year. It was not long after that that Mom got into cake decorating in a big way and everyone on the block got to sample her work. She passed out decorated cakes for a while like some people give away their surplus zucchini crop each summer. It seems natural to me that Mom made a living for many years in the celebration business. She always could make even a simple event into a party, and she still does! Give her a reason and She'll put out the pretty plates and napkins, way too much good food and if you are really lucky a cake! So her block had to be the pattern called "cake stand"

I'll give you three guesses

2010-06-04T08:09:00.000-07:00

This block is called Monkey Wrench and I will give you three guesses who its for. If you guessed Daddy, and I know you did, then you were right. When I spent time with Daddy's brother Bob this summer in Ohio I was prepared to hear him sound eerily like Daddy. I had spoken with him on the phone a few times, so the shock of that had worn off. It was a nice thing to hear in Bob's voice an echo of Daddy. What I was utterly unprepared for was how much Bob smelled like him! I think it was the acrid smell of engines and motors and grease on Bob that smelled familiar to me, and to see the grease permanently rimming the edges of his fingernails reminded me of the lava soap and grease smudges on the bathroom sink that Daddy always left behind, an occupational hazard of the wife of a mechanic, right Mom?

Bob told me a story about Daddy who at the tender age of 8 or 9 came to him asking for a ride into town. Bob could not take him until he had plowed the oat field for his dad and it would take him about three hours to do it. He went to work plowing and about 15 or 20 minutes later he heard a noise and turned to see Daddy driving another tractor and plow. He was astonished at the sight, not so much to see an 8 or 9 year old plowing a field, but because he knew the tractor had been sitting broken and out of service in the barn just a few minutes before. Daddy had diagnosed the problem, fixed it and hitched up the plow all in that little bit of time. I heard similar stories from his other brother too, so I think its no exaggeration to say that Daddy was a mechanical genius and what better block to illustrate that than the Monkey Wrench!

Granny's Flower Garden

2010-05-27T11:55:00.000-07:00

Ok, so this block is officially called "Grandmothers Flower Garden" but My grandmother was called Granny, so I am taking creative license and calling the block I chose for her after her. As easy a choice as "Trip Around The World" was for me to choose For Gertrude, "Granny's Flower Garden" was even easier for me to choose for My Mom's mom Martha Bridget Rhody Bartley. Anybody who knew my Granny knew she could coax life out of the most barren places and restore vitality to almost any green thing. Her back yard was like a paradise when we were little, filled with roses and buttercups , hens and chicks and a lawn you could walk through barefoot. (anybody who has grown up in the southwest with goat heads and sand burrs knows what a feat that is!) There was also the giant pecan tree who's nuts gave Papa his pass to listen to baseball on the radio. We would sit on the back steps with Granny's own little golden hammer and use it to crack open the pecans that we had gathered from around the yard, and the concrete Donkey pulling his cart full of flowers that we loved to sit on until we got to be a little too big. Granny had such a green thumb that even now that she has been gone for over a decade there are still house plants that she nurtured and grew and cuttings from those plants being passed around Clovis like so much Amish Friendship bread. I am not surprised that she has left a horticultural legacy that still thrives today. I know when I go back I plan on getting my share of cuttings so I will have my own living reminder of my Granny and her flower garden.

This one is for PaPa

2010-05-27T09:42:00.000-07:00

My Mom's dad was Clarence Russell Bartley, we called him PaPa. I could have chosen lots of things to represent him. Maybe I could have found a pattern that called to mind his time as a Chuck Wagon cook on a Texas cattle ranch, or the fact that he came to Texas from Alton
Missouri in a covered wagon as a baby. Maybe I could have somehow told in fabric the story of how he always gave Jamie and me a quarter apiece to go across the street to the "Toot~N~Tot'em" to buy a bag of candy whenever we visited and how we would agonize over how to spend our twenty-five cents. We always knew that a trip to Amarillo to see Granny and PaPa had the potential of ending up at Thompson park where he would push us on the swings or spin us on the Merry-go-Round. If it was a really lucky trip we would find ourselves at Wonderland Park where PaPa would help us find bits of litter to "feed" to the over sized vacuum made to look like a hungry pig in a giant mushroom house who was so ravenous that he would quite literally suck the garbage right out of your hand! Any of those things would call PaPa to my mind, so I was spoiled for choice when it came time to pick a block for PaPa.

What I did choose is a block called Carpenters Square because PaPa was also a carpenter. When we moved to Cannon AFB as small children we heard how PaPa had worked as a carpenter to help build the base. It was something we were very proud of, and always made sure our friends and neighbors knew. Whereever we went on Cannon we always wondered, had our PaPa built this place too? Maybe... it was possible. So even though PaPa did lots of things, its as a carpenter that I will remember him in this quilt. I think remembering him as a carpenter is a good choice maybe because we kept his big heavy hammer after he was gone. We had more than one hammer in the house, but whenever somebody asked for "The Hammer" we all knew they meant PaPa's hammer. Its still there, more than thirty years later and its still the hammer we all think of whenever we think of hammers at all.

Gertrude's trip around the world

2010-05-27T09:03:00.000-07:00

My Dad's mother Gertrude Riley Furney did not travel much. She lived and died in southern Missouri, so why would I choose a pattern called "Trip Around The World" to represent her? In my closet I have an old quilt pieced in the uncommon pattern of "Many Trips Around the World" I have always believed it was made by my grandmother Gertrude, but there was nothing to base this assumption on other than my desire for it to be so. And I did desire it. I wanted something to connect me to my Dad's mother, and this quilt was it, I felt it was true, even if I did not know it was true. Finally last summer while visiting my Uncle Dale he offered to show me a quilt that his mother had made. The minute he walked in the room holding that "Many Trips" quilt done just like our quilt but in different colors, I knew Gertrude had made our quilt. I knew she made those quilts for her boys to have long after she was gone. I was sorry for a while that we had been so rough with our quilt, not really appreciating what we had. We camped under that quilt, we picnicked on top of it. Sweat out fevers swaddled in it, I have even eaten Thanksgiving dinner in the Netherlands from a table draped in it and had it carefully shipped back from Hawaii labeled on the manifest as TuTu's Blanket. ( Hawaiians really appreciate a good old quilt!) But you know, in retrospect, I am glad we used the quilt. I am glad that the memories of my life are as intertwined with that quilt as they would have been with Gertrude if she had lived to know me. And you know what else? I think Gertrude would agree. I think she would be pleased to know that she accomplished her mission, that through her quilts, she was known and remembered and loved, and I think she would laugh to know her "Many Trips Around the World" has in fact been around the world!

Grandpa Sol

2010-05-24T11:41:00.000-07:00

When I first started planning the quilt I made a list of all the people and ideas I wanted represented and I started with my grandparents. This tractor is for my Grandpa Sol Furney. I remember visiting him once in Oklahoma when I was very little and have always fondly remembered the ride he gave us on his tractor. I only later came to find out what a remarkable man he was. While talking with his son Bob last summer he told me how his dad could do things with a caterpillar tractor "that would make you suck spit" He told me how Sol could maneuver it in such a way that it would in effect pop a wheelie so that he could load it onto a flatbed trailer without using a ramp. My other uncle Dale told me how his dad led the way in paving a road on a steep hill in southern Missouri. It was Sol who figured out the way to get the trucks loaded heavy with gravel, up the steep hill without flipping over...in reverse! Bob told me that the advice he got from his dad was to never push himself or his machine past about 90% of what he and it could do, always leave that 10% wiggle room so as not to get in over his head. That passes through my mind every time I mash the "Sport" button on my mini and swing without decelerating into the cloverleaf turn that takes me off of Clemson road and onto Two Notch just because me and my mini can. I keep my foot hovering over the break pedal just in case I feel myself creeping past that 90% mark. I think Grandpa Sol knew what he was talking about. I wish I could have known him better, I think I would have liked him a lot.

PS, I tweaked the back wheel on the tractor block so its less wonky now.

The first order of business...

2010-05-24T11:20:00.000-07:00

Now that I have my quilt blocks chosen and am ready to begin, the first order of business is choosing the fabrics. This in my opinion is THE major make or break moment in any quilt. Sure there are countless other ways it can all go horribly wrong, but this is the moment of primary quilt failure. If you get this wrong, no amount precision needlework can save the quilt from mediocrity. Get it right and you will have a winner no matter how dismal your technical skills. I am talking about choosing your colors and fabrics. And I speak from painful experience.

Because of this, I have made it my business over the last several years to get better at my fabric and color choices. This I decided was to be my strong suit and so it seems to be. My grasp of color is getting better and better, so even in spite of my ordinary quilting stitch, I feel confident that there are many stunning quilts in my future based on my improved ability to choose a pallet of fabrics as a foundation from which to build my quilt.

The fabrics above are the pallet for my quilt. They are a more soothing version of the cheerful and bright colors I like to have around me when I am in a creative mood, so they seemed to be the perfect choice for this, my very personal and very creative family tree quilt. I am missing a few fabrics yet. I will scour my fabric stash or my favorite quilt store to find them, a pale ochre and dark dull blue...and then we will be cleared for take -off!

My next big thing

2010-05-24T08:43:00.001-07:00

This was a Christmas present from Steve last year. Its a quilt book that walks you through the process of creating a sampler quilt wherein the blocks chosen represent something meaningful from your life. I liked the concept very much and was glad that it made it off my wish list and under the tree. Unfortunately I had other outstanding projects that I needed to get to before I dared start another. Finally the time has come to begin work on my own diary quilt.

At first I thought telling my story through this quilt would involve blocks that spoke about my life and interests but I soon found out the things that are the most meaningful to me are not the day to day components that make up my life in particular but the big elements that make up my life in general. That is to say, my family tree. I have been doing a lot of fruitful family research in recent years and have learned a great deal of my family history. I have pieced together a puzzle that I thought I would never solve and I love the picture it shows. My family is diverse and interesting, tragic and triumphant and has a long long history in America, all the way to the very beginning. But its not the early ancestors I focus on in this quilt, they do get a nod, and I will write about them later, but the bulk of the story in this quilt belongs to my grandparents, my parents, my sister, my husband, my son, and me. I hope it will prove to be a much loved and long lived family legacy, and if ever there should come another one like myself in my family line, I hope this quilt will help them piece together their own family puzzle.

The somewhat daily beast

2010-05-22T07:55:00.000-07:00

A while back I heard mention of a news blog by Tina Brown titled "The Daily Beast" I wondered at the name, thinking it was such an odd and funny name for a news blog . Now I have a theory...Fast Forward a month or two to the time I started thinking of having a blog of my own. I was full of ideas and eager to start. I would post something daily and it would be a great way to showcase whatever creative endeavor I was in the throes of at a given time. A safe bet I reckoned because I am always in the throes of something! But the daily posts began to dwindle to two or three a week, and then even fewer, now if I can manage a new post twice a week its been a good run. (sad when you consider how new my blog is) The problem is with the pictures really. I have not wanted to fool with uploading pictures. Now that Steve has his new camera he uploads the new shots to his computer and that introduces a whole new layer of technology I have to wade through to get the pictures I want for my blog, and thus far, I have been unwilling to do it. So the eagerness to post new posts has started to fade and I remembered the news blog, and thought I bet she calls it the Daily Beast because it lurks there in background with its threatening presence until she fulfills her daily duty to it; updates and posts etc...Of course she is Tina Brown and I know she has minions to do her bidding, still the beast lurks no matter who you are!
But there is new hope for fending off my somewhat daily beast. It comes in the form of the next quilt I am undertaking. Its blocks will be the inspiration for my posts for the foreseeable future, but fear not gentle reader, it will not be as much about quilts as you might think. I will interject the odd unrelated post as the whim occurs, and hopefully there will be plenty of good pictures. I have commandeered the old camera and it will be mine to do with as I will. Its not a bad camera either the picture of Mungo up there was taken with it at the Columbia Zoo not two months ago!

You say its your Birthday!

2010-05-18T05:29:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday Omar! Who is Omar some of you may be wondering, is he another one of my mysterious boyfriends like Killa or Raoul? Not hardly. Omar is my Mom. Back when she first became a grandmother we had a discussion about what she ought to be called. Granny was taken by her Mom, and we never could get on board with Meemaw, Mamaw and the like...I don't know. Something about Meemaw and it's variants just rubbed us the wrong way. Grandma was taken by Grandma Wachter So since we were living in the Netherlands when the blessed even took place we looked to our Dutch/ English dictionary for some inspiration. That's were we found Oma, Dutch for Grandma. It was perfect, Mom was now an Oma. Zach happily called her that for years until he said it in a classroom in Nebraska and was laughed at for making up his own words. They never would believe him that it was a real word, but then this is the same school that employed a teacher(one of Zach's favorites) who told him there was no such thing as a duty free shop in an airport...Those folks in Nebraska need to get out a little more, dontcha think?

Anyway, how did Oma turn into Omar? I have two words for you..."spell check" " ahh, I see..." I hear you all saying. Yes, whenever we would type in the word Oma and run the spell check Omar would pop up as a better option for Oma. SO naturally I found it hysterically funny to accept the proffered "improvement" and would allow the program to change all my Omas to Omars. It stuck and now Oma has been Omar for years in our correspondence. Mom even said she heard Zach call out " goodnight Omar " a few days ago, so now its not just in the written word that she is called Omar, but in practice as well. Now that we all are running around calling her Omar, she may wish she had stuck with Meemaw!

Long memories

2010-05-13T11:52:00.000-07:00

A long memory is apparently a Furney family trait. I was visiting with my Uncle Bob in Ohio last summer when he told me he could remember far back into his early childhood to getting his diaper changed on his mother's lap, and because she was a generously proportioned woman, fearing that he would roll off for lack of space. So its not surprising to me that I too have a long memory and generous proportions. The memory thing is real a mixed blessing. The generous proportions not so much. True, being blessed with a long memory has allowed me to to hold on to some of the best times of my life with remarkable clarity. Steve is often amazed when I can recount specific details of an event that happened decades ago. It's nice to have a memory so vivid that the memories themselves seem almost tangible. The down side is that it makes it near impossible to forgive and forget. Oh, I've got the forgiveness part down pretty much, its the forgetting that I have trouble with. Once slighted, that same memory that lets me remember the color of my grandmothers living room walls from a time when I was too young to speak, also brings back the most unfortunate things in painfully sharp focus. Since I am hardwired to remember in hi def crystal clarity I need to come up with a more workable plan than forgive and forget. Perhaps a better strategy for me is "Forgive and Avoid" I will let you know how it works out. As for the generous proportions...When the famine comes and I am among the few survivors, I will use my long memory to pay homage all my skinny friends who did not make it through.

The curse continues

2010-05-10T06:12:00.001-07:00

OK, Now its starting to get weird,but you really cannot appreciate the full twilight zoniness of this whole episode until I fill you in on the rest of what has happened since Steve failed to ask permission for the second photo of Robert the Doll. On our return from Florida the first time, you know the one without the back seat to our van...we stopped at a Cracker Barrel for lunch and a server dropped a glass near our table and my ankle was cut by a flying shard of glass. We half hoped this would entitle us to free desert or a discount perhaps, but no, it only garnered us a complimentary band aid. Then on to the house where I discovered the rather expensive shirt I bought in Key West as a souvenir was a size too big. I thought " no worries" I'll slap some darts in there and it will fit like a glove, and it would have too, except I snipped a hole in it as I was trimming the threads...now its destined to be in quilt one day. All of that is unfortunate but is it the product of a curse? I don't know. What I do know is that on the second return trip Steve was suddenly and mysteriously taken ill. He went to bed more or less healthy and woke up too sick to drive. So I drove us the 10 hours home and he sat with a barf bucket in his lap and a look of pure misery on his face. For those inclined to believe in such things, what I have told is more than enough to convince them that we are paying the price for that unauthorized photo, but for those who are more skeptical, I have only this to add. This morning when I pulled up my blog to add this post I noticed that one picture was missing from my blog. All the other pictures were there, but the picture Steve took of Robert the Doll was missing and in its place was nothing more than that annoying red X that sometimes shows up where a picture is supposed to be. I added the picture back, lets see if it stays this time.

It's all Robert's fault

2010-05-07T02:50:00.000-07:00

I am not one to believe in curses, I think if there is any real power in a curse its the power of suggestion and nothing more. Having said that, I would like to suggest that we have been victims of the curse of Robert the doll. In Key West there is a doll on display in a museum that had at one time belonged to a resident. It's believed that the doll bears a curse that now effects all who photograph the doll without first asking permission. As skeptical of these things as I am, I look like a true believer when compared to my husband who is the most skeptical person I know. poo-pooing the curse, Steve was loath to ask the doll permission before snapping its picture. Still, he played along and did ask the first time he took a picture, but I was listening when he spoke to the doll a second time. He did not ask permission for the picture above, he only informed Robert that he was taking it. Woe be unto him to fails to ask permission....The next day Steve loaded our van full of our suitcases for our 10 hour drive from Miami to Columbia. He might have noticed that there was ample room for our things back there, more room than usual. We had taken the back bench seat out of the van to make room for all the suitcases, and beach gear when we were heading to Key West. He completely forgot to put it back in the van for our trip home and we did not notice it missing until we pulled into our garage in Columbia. So in about an hour we are climbing back in the van and returning to Miami to collect the rest of it. Is it a curse, or just an ever more common senior moment? I have to ask is there really a difference?

Mr. Humphries steps out

2010-05-04T03:32:00.000-07:00

Apparently the "Jack 72 Hamster Resort" is not spacious enough for our Mr. Humphries. This flies in the astonished face of the Pet store worker who said and I quote "Hey everybody, she is buying this huge cage for a HAMSTER!" I was even applauded for my generosity and concern for the happiness and well being my little charge as I left the store with my supersized hamster cage, I am not exaggerating. Steve was there, he will attest to my veracity.
So imagine my surprise when Steve asked me if I had forgot something the night before....Now let me let this sink in for a minute. When Steve discovered Mr. Humphries at the bottom of a red plastic bin in the bottom of the downstairs coat closet the next morning his thought process was such that he assumed I shut up Mr. Humphries in the tub in the closet by mistake and had completely forgot to put her back in her cage after our nightly play session....Did that sink in? He thought I absent mindedly locked my pet hamster in a closet, rather than her cage....He did not even consider that Mr. Humphries had made an escape from said cage. It's moments like that when I call him "Son of Myrtle" because his Mother Myrtle's brain often seemed to work in a similar fashion. But I digress... I did put Mr. Humphries back in her cage with a fresh piece of strawberry and my best wishes for a good night and then I headed off to bed. Sometime in the night she managed to pop open one of the three doors to her Jack 72 Hamster resort and she lit out. She must have managed to descend the thirteen stairs to the kitchen, ran all the way across the linoleum to the living room, where she skirted the perimeter until happening on the closet door which clears the carpet on the bottom by a good inch and half. She shimmied under the door and must have climbed an umbrella to reach the top of the red plastic bin before she dropped in to see what she could see and that was it...She was trapped. She spent who knows how many hours in the bin until Steve heard her the next day and wondered what on Earth I was thinking locking her in the closest all night long...This is my life...shared with an ungrateful hamster and a man who's' first thought at finding the hamster in the closet is that I put it there....You just can't make this stuff up.

Nest Egg Cottage

2010-04-30T05:09:00.000-07:00

When you talk to miniaturists, one of the first things they ask you is how many dollhouses you have. I always felt a little guilty saying "one little cottage" because the hardcore miniaturist usually has several houses, some of them quite large. When I first started out I had my one cottage that I filled with inexpensive things, and castoffs from other miniaturists, who's tastes and budgets had moved to a higher level. It was my goal at the time just to get it filled and being small enough to fit was my only criteria. The result was a ho-hum house with a few "cute" things, but nothing that would impress a fellow miniaturist.

Since then my tastes and budget have improved so I knew it was time to upgrade my lone cottage. At some point in my miniature "career" I had decided rather than a large quantity of miniatures, my goal would be to have few, but to have the best I could afford. So with that in mind I set about renovating my cottage. . I gutted it and started to work on my vision. It does not hold a lot, but what is in there is high grade stuff! I call it Nest Egg Cottage and its inspired by the art of Marjolien Bastin. It turned out just as I had imagined it. I knew I hit the mark when my husband, looking inside said " You did it to look like where you would want to live didn't you!" He was so right! It pleases me that the house says that to him, and that he knows me well enough to hear it speaking. It is my dream cottage and if I could find a bottle labeled "Drink Me" I would move in today.

to blog or not to blog...

2010-04-26T09:26:00.000-07:00

to blog or not to blog, that was question for me today. Its Monday which is my housework and drudgery day, plus I am battling a cold, so I was already feeling put upon and abused so did not feel like facing the computer too. You might think by the number of successful posts that I have this all figured out, but you would be wrong. I come each time to the computer ready to spend ages trying to get the picture and the font and the layout the way I want it. Each time I am as surprised as I was the first time when it actually comes out more or less like I planned. Today I decided to face it because in a fit of caffeine fueled energy and optimism I put it on my "to Do" list for the day, and since it was on the list, I figured I might as well do it. Never mind that I was the one who made the list and ought to feel entitled to amend it...I never do for some strange reason, a topic to explore more fully on another day.

For today lets look at Key West in a jar. On one of the afternoons on Key West we spent a little while beach combing and the picture above is the result. It looks totally staged and store bought, but I promise there is not a thing in that jar other than the sand on the bottom that did not come from our gleanings from that afternoon on the beach. I love it! What a way to remember our time there and like all the best souvenirs, it was absolutely free!

Killa Moves

2010-04-23T10:24:00.000-07:00

I never thought of myself as a "cougar" until this past weekend when I was eye to eye with a "big game Hunter" in Key West. I thought you had to be on the prowl to earn the title, but I guess being a suitable target is reason enough. My friend and I were standing in a bar on Duval street waiting for our husbands when two twenty somethings came over and struck up a conversation...if you could call it that; too many margaritas all around make that a dubious claim at best...at any rate... To our credit we owned up to being happily married from the very beginning, but that seemed to matter little to Killa and his Friend. I call him Killa because it was tattooed on his arm. After a few more failed attempts to win us over we left them to try their moves on more suitable targets and we went off to find our husbands in order tell them about our adventure and yes, to gloat a little...OK a LOT! Thanks Killa, where ever you are.

Bucket list line items

2010-04-23T07:42:00.000-07:00

I don't have a bucket list in the traditional sense. That is to say, there is no paper on which it is written, but I do have in the back of my mind a list of sorts. Things that have always held my interest or that I have always hoped to do. Its a strange compilation of things that matter only to me. Some of the items are no surprise"see the pyramids of Giza" for example, but one of the stranger things has always been to be able to identify poison ivy. Its not common on the high plains where I grew up if it exists there at all and I never had to worry about running afoul of it. It did bother me that I might though since I had no earthly idea of how to spot it. Its not as easy as it seems because poison ivy is a chameleon of a plant. Its leaves may be notched or smooth, it may be growing as a vine, or a bush...But still that rhyme stuck in my brain "leaves of three, let it be" So on a recent trip to the Columbia Zoo I spotted the plant pictured above and wondered aloud if it might be poison ivy. We did not know, and Steve refused to test it out on his arm...so I had to settle on snapping a picture and researching it later. Much to my delight, I can finally put a mental check mark next to "Identify Poison Ivy" on my strange little unwritten Bucket list.

Mr. Humphries

2010-04-14T04:05:00.000-07:00

Its been over year since we said goodbye to Milford our dog. Its been hard getting used to not having an animal in the house after 14 years with Milfy. We have decided to put off getting another dog until retirement so that we both will be free to travel during our last few years with the Military. We soon realized that we needed a pet. Fish were an option because they could be left unattended, with the help of an automatic feeder, for days at a time, but they lacked fur,which we knew was something we were definitely looking for. We soon realized that a Hamster would bridge the gap between the carefree but also snuggle free nature of fish and the furry cuddles we craved from a dog, but with the ability to be on on its own for a few days at a time. When we brought our little hamster home from the pet store it was still fairly young and we were told by the pet store employee that it was a little boy hamster and so we chose the name Mr. Humphries from an old Britcom that we used to enjoy. As Mr. Humphries matured we noticed his anatomy did not correspond with the anatomical drawings of male hamsters in the helpful books I had purchased on Hamster Husbandry. No, our little Mr. Humphries is most definitely a girl, but the name remains.

She has a lot of personality for such a little thing. She willingly steps onto our hands to leave her cage every evening for a chance to explore the world outside. She will drop most anything to take a peanut in her little paws, and when she hears the crinkle of the bag that holds her yogurt drops she always sits up and takes notice. We call her our methadone Dog, since she is helping to take the edge off our Doggy withdrawal. She is not as obviously delighted to see us as a dog would be, but in her own small ways, she lets us know she is pleased we are there and I am happy to say the feelings are mutual.

Not mine, not yet...

2010-04-13T11:50:00.000-07:00

This is one of the quilts I have lined up in the chute waiting to be done. Its number three in the queue. I found the pattern online and fell instantly in love. It marries the things I grew to love while living in Hawaii and my favorite quilt style, the Baltimore Album. I might change a few details or not. I am undecided at this point and since I have the luxury of time, I will mull it over some more. The last Baltimore Album I did, and incidentally, my first, was going to be my Magnum Opus, but its too small to be called magnum...I guess I should call it my minimum opus. But my Hawaiian Album, now that will definitely be worth the title Magnum Opus. Now to hurry up and finish the ones in line ahead of it!