A Squishy Was in the Mail Today

I know some very special people. Here's proof.

Bea (aka Holee who has a blog in my list to the right) used my French Braid Quilt tutorial and made a big quilt. With the scraps, she made a little quilt and posted about it on her blog.

When I got home, I had a squishy envelope waiting on me. Bea's name was in the return address area. I had no idea what she was up to.

I have a rotten stopped up head due to sinus problems and was ready to change clothes, plop on the bed, and go to sleep. But I had to open this first!

Thank you my special friend!!

Stuff

I had to check out my latest photo uploads before I could figure out what to blog about today. A LOT is going on around here. I'll just comment in the order the photos loaded.

This was my daddy's "toy." An old B Model Mack. When Daddy had it, it was red. It was sold to a man my youngest brother worked for (aka...oh, never mind...I promised not to call him "the Brat" any more...but he's the brother who put rocks in my gas tank) when he lived in Arkansas. The truck has been completely gone through! And my understanding is that if baby brother ever gets the information to him...Mr Chrisman will have a plaqued engraved and the truck dedicated to my dad.

Some high school classmates and I went to a bar. :-) Yes...many of you didn't think I had it in me did you? LOL We have another classmate who after retiring from the Navy formed a band with his wife. They were playing about 25 miles from us, so we piled into a couple of vehicles and went to hear them. We always stay until the last song is sung...and have a blast. I had my one margarita...only part of it 'cause one of the girlfriends accidentally knocked it over. She tried to buy me another, but since it was well over half gone, I wouldn't let her. I told her, "Next time." Think we had a total of six of us there.

Judy, Earlene, Kathy Melanie, Me
PS Earlene and I have been friends since 5th grade. Melanie was my first BFF when I moved here in the 3rd grade.

OUCH! Notice a difference in the feet? See the red splotch on the left foot? Can you spell W*A*S*P...as in red wasp? I had on a pair of dress sandals last Sunday. Saw a red wasp on the step and - vicious woman that I am - stepped on him. It was like slow motion. My eyes widened and my eyebrows touched my hairline as I realized that I'd only stepped on half of him...and the half I stepped on was not the "business" half. (Yep...this was a day or two later, and I really do need a fresh pedicure.)Horrified, I stood there like a dummy as he twisted his ugly abdomen and popped me at the side of the base of my big toe...on that knobby, boney part...see the white circle? I did pretty good until Tuesday. Itcharama city. I kept it sprayed with a topical anti-itch stuff. On Monday, I took the ice pack out of my lunch bag, wrapped it in layers of paper towels and plopped my foot on top of it. But Tuesday...NOTHING helped! At lunch I went to the store for some benadryl. Took one or two! Ahhhhhhh....within 30 minutes...RELIEF!

Do you remember Topo Gigo on the Ed Sullivan Show? I can still hear, "Edddieeeeee." LOL

I do have some C.O.W. issues, but will not burden any of you with them. But I've done the "eyeroll" so many times that I have a headache and in all probability am afraid they are going to "stick like that." eyeroll...did it again!

The Wedding

Groan and moan. That's all anyone is talking about! I did not watch it at 4 a.m. and was extremely disappointed that I could not get "real" news that morning while getting ready to go to work. When I turned the television on at about 7:15 I was so excited to watch thousands upon thousands of people milling around waiting for the newlyweds to appear on the balcony...Yaaaawwwwwnnnnn.

Now that the hoopla is over I was able to see what I wanted to see.

Kate is a beautiful self-possessed young woman. Her gowns were in extremely good taste. You can see the love shared between her and William. I pray that they stay in love the rest of their lives!

What a difference in the flash-back photos of Diana and Charles. That young woman was tragically manipulated by the royal family in order to produce an heir to the throne. The over-done froo-froo gown just swamped her delicate frame. She seemed to be so intimated by everything that she very seldom lifted her eyes. Charles swamped her emotions and self-respect with his philandering with Camilla...lovely woman that she is.

Queen Elizabeth should be ashamed of herself for the part she played in setting Diana up with Charles.

C.O.W. Alert! C.O.W. Alert!

Cranky Old Woman Alert!

C.O.W. #3 Poor, poor Sam. He started worrying about our Saturday Easter dinner leftovers Saturday evening!

C.O.W. #2 Has anyone ever asked you to show them how to do something...for instance...on Facebook. And you tell them, "There may be more than one way to do this, but this is how I do it." Then griped because of the wording when the task was complete. Even after being told...I didn't design this, call that guy...the person was still pissed because it should've been "this way."

I saved the BEST for last!

C.O.W. #1 Some idiot walked into our little one-person public library and pulled a gun on the librarian - Earlene - my best friend! He stole the DONATION jar! From the LIBRARY!! With a GUN! NO MASK!!! What an idiot! He even threatened to kill her if she called the police. Well...DUH! Did he really think she wouldn't?!

I talked her this morning after I found out about the robbery. She had a pretty good description of him. Since he was a young man...I suggested looking at the last few high school annuals. Report here already: http://www.kltv.com/

Update: They caught him the same day! He was at WalMart 25 miles away trying to pay for a purchase with all change!

Family Today!

We had a great time! Friday afternoon Isabel arrived with her chauffeur. Grandpa on a walk with Brook and Isabel...Isabel fell asleep about 2 seconds later.

For supper we had shrimp pasta salad and Irish soda Bread.

http://keepyouinstitches.blogspot.com/search/label/Traditional%20Irish%20Soda%20Bread

Before...


...after...

After Isabel's night bedtime Friday, Colt showed up with his entourage. After some visiting, Colt got fussy. Granny (that would be ME) took him out to the screen porch and we sat in one of the rocking patio chairs. He fell asleep in about 2 seconds.

Saturday morning...HELLO COUSIN. Unfortunately, Colt had a bit of a stuffy nose and they weren't permitted to get too close to each other.

We visited and played and I held babies ...although from the photos you would never guess it!

I baked a ham and cooked pinto beans, roasted sweet potatoes drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with a bit of grated nutmeg and a very light sprinkle of cayenne pepper, roasted asparagus drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with Kosher salt, mixed green salad with homemade honey mustard salad dressing... http://keepyouinstitches.blogspot.com/search/label/honey%20mustard%20salad%20dressing ..., homemade peppercorn salad dressing, and a bottled jar of raspberry vinaigrette. And a loaf of bread machine white bread...with butter!

For dessert...a strawberry pie. http://keepyouinstitches.blogspot.com/search/label/Strawberry%20Pie

Before... ...after.

I'm going to have to do something different with the strawberry pie. The juice is too juicy. I don't want it set up like pudding...but I don't want it like water. I've always used flour for thickening in my fruit pies. Next time I bake a strawberry pie I am going to use cornstarch. If that doesn't work, I'll try tapioca.

We also had a chocolate pudding cake.

http://keepyouinstitches.blogspot.com/search/label/Chocolate%20Pudding%20Cake

I did not get a photo of it. And now...there's only one slice left. Hmmm...See you later!

French Braid Quilt Revisited

My friend Bea/Holee used my tutorial and made this quilt top.

http://beashive-bea.blogspot.com/2011/04/french-braid-quilt-top-finished.html

Didn't she do a great job?!

They're Baaa-ack!

I kept hearing something bumping late yesterday. No tennis shoes in the dryer. The dishwasher was correctly loaded. Hmmmm. The TANAGERS are back! This darlin' couple normally starts up at 5 a.m.

(See her (yellow) top left? He's (red) sitting in the second bottom frame from the right.)

Every spring since 2005, we have to shut my sewing room door just so we can sleep. He is sitting so sweetly and makes cooing noises about that good looking hen over there. She just swallows it hook, line, and sinker and goes to battle. While he sits and winks. WHAT'S THAT?! Over there?! Making eyes at my woman? er...hen! I'll go ruffle his feathers for a change!

I Ironed. Blech!!

This was definitely a working weekend. The only thing left to do (in the house) is to bring the step ladder in so that I can put some quilts on the top shelf of the closet and clean the top shelves in the two open shelving areas in the master bath. I also need to dust the livingroom furniture and my breakfront china cabinet. Then...the spring cleaning...will be through!!! (Except for my sewing room and that's a different on-going project.) In other words...I worked my butt off. Oh...just turned around and it's still there. RATS! My floors are so clean! I ran around barefooted before having to put on shoes to go to work. Sam and I ate pizza for dinner Sunday. We were sitting there minding our own business when a young couple with two small children sat right behind me. Sigh. But the kids were cute and well mannered. Dad corrected the little boy when he grabbed a handful of ham cubes. Dad said, "No. Not a handful, only a few." Older sister replied, "A few means 'two'." While Mom was at the buffet filling her plate, the little girl started crying. Very obviously SOMETHING was wrong. I turned around and she was holding her hand out with one finger extended. She had BITTEN her own finger. I just about fell out of my chair laughing.

Boing

I almost messed up.

I'm not accustomed to working 40 hour weeks yet. It's really hard to do housework when you don't spend weekends at home. I hate ironing clothes! Have I ever mentioned that? Well...I hate ironing clothes!

Pine pollen season is over. My house needs a really good spring cleaning. Saturday afternoon while Sam was watching the race (since Dale Jarrett retired, I don't watch any more) I cleaned our walk-in closet. I had already stripped some of the old clothes out and set them aside for charity (delivered them yesterday). I tossed shoes out of one of the shoe racks and moved it out of the way so that I could vacuum that part of the closet floor. I walked out of the closet to put something somewhere else. When I walked back in, I tripped on the shoe rack. My mind was on the shelving...I did not want it literally ON the shelving! So I tried to make myself as small as I could tucking in body parts and ducking my head.

That probably kept me from throwing a hand out and breaking a bone.

My head hit a shoe. I lay prostrate on the carpet and thanked the sweet Lord because he led us to a house with a large walk-in closet. If it had been ten inches narrower...

Then I laughed at myself. Stooopid!

Many Blessings on Sunday

I got to see Isabel...more about that on another post.

The main blessing on Sunday had nothing to do with attending an organized church service. On our trip home, we stopped for a hamburger in Sulphur Springs (Texas). I noticed a couple of men dressed in fatigues and mentioned to Sam that I saw a couple of military men. When we entered the Whataburger...they were everywhere! I talked with one of the kids...er...young men and found out that they were from Little Rock and were on their way back to Fort Hood to complete their training before being deployed...he was headed to Iraq. Sam had found out the same thing talking to the soldier he was visiting with.

Then Sam talked to an older man, a civilian. A Little Rock church (I didn't get all the information from the side of their bus but it was a Baptist church in LR) sent their big bus and their little bus to Fort Hood and brought the men and women back home before deployment! They were on their return trip at the end of their leave and had stopped in Sulphur Springs in an area that had several places to eat and the soldiers had spread out.

We had a couple dozen soldiers eating with us. Sam and I sat at a table eating our hamburgers. I could barely eat for trying to keep the tears out my eyes. I made certain that I looked at each person and said a prayer.