Look What Came in the Mail!!!

I won this cute little pillow from Charity http://www.vintagethreads.blogspot.com/ . It's just darling and hangs on the doorknob of my spare room. I love the colors! Thanks, Charity!

She also sent these cute little appliques and tag!

And this fun card complete with silk flower, button center, and BLING!

The pics aren't so great and certainly don't do justice to all of the fun, thoughtful goodies sent.

Once again, Charity, THANK YOU!

I've been working on my QAL (Quilt A Long) with Amanda over at http://www.crazymomquilts.blogspot.com/. We're on week three. I have my first two blocks done and will be doing block #3 tonight and working on the setting blocks this week. There's still time to join in and Amanda makes the tutorials very clear and easy to follow, especially for someone like me that would rather look at pictures than read directions. Hopefully, pics will be posted in the next few days. Until then, quilt on;)

May Day

Happy May Day to all:)!

The first tulip has finally bloomed! It's just beautiful and there's the promise of many more to come. At last count...I counted 126 buds!!! I can't wait for the color!

Today on the way to work I saw icicles, that's right, icicles hanging off of the lower branches of a tall pine. They were really kind of cool (no pun intended) looking. I figured that the sprinklers must have been on early in the morning and as the water was dripping from the pine needles it was just cold enough to form the icicles.

On one of the blogs I read, the writer was writing about memories and had shared several of her memories by starting out with the phrase, "I remember...". So, I thought I'd follow suit...I remember dancing the May Pole Dance, on May Day, when I was in third grade. We had long streamers of crape paper that were every pastel shade available. They were attached to the top of the teatherball poles on the playground and as the music played the whole class bobbed and weaved around their respective circles. I remember some of the poles looking a lot better that others. The one I was on was one of the ones that didn't turn out so well, but the colors sure were pretty, none the less. I remember when we lived at 3008 Karen Ave. in Long Beach, CA doing my part of the yard work. My assignment was to mow the front yard and clean up the ivy there. I also had the south side of the house to clean up. That's where the camellias and baby tears grew. To this day, I still love the way baby tears look and think it a shame that for as pretty as camellias are they have not scent. I also remember getting mad at my mom one day after school, when we lived at 7935 Ring St., in Long Beach, CA, about what, about what I have long since forgotten, but I needed to blow off some steam so I went out in the backyard and weeded the whole rose garden and cleaned it up. I remember, again when we lived on Ring St., getting up early on Saturday mornings before anyone else in the house was awake (Saturday's were chore days and we did not get to sleep in) and baking cookies and cakes and making jam and pie with the fresh peaches that grew on the lone dwarf peach tree that grew in that same rose garden and my pet camellian, that I bought at the Pomona Fair, sunning himself on the rose bushes. The only way I could find him was to look for his red "leash". When I bought him the "leash" was very short, only a couple of inches of red thread. I thought it needed to be longer and so the day after I got him I got into mom's thread tin and found just the right shade of red thread to match the "leash". I gave him an extra 3+ feet. By being so generous it made it very difficult to untangle him from the thorny rose bushes when I wanted to hold him. I finally came to the conclusion that he needed his freedom and so the "leash" was removed and he was set free. To my amazement, he hung out it the rose garden for several weeks. I think it was because of the endless supple of aphids that were available there. One day I could no longer find him and figured that he had move on to somewhere else. Thinking I'd never see him again, I remember thinking that I had been able to keep him alive a lot longer that anyone had expected. Well, much to my amazement, several weeks later who should I find sunning himself on the cinder block wall in the backyard, but my pet camellian. I was sad to see that part of his tail was missing. He looked really cold, in fact, he looked frozen so I took him and put him in an old can that I found and moved him to a warmer spot on the fence. I thought he would thaw out a lot faster with the warmer location and the can holding the heat longer. That was the last time I ever saw him. Hopefully he went on to live a long and happy camellian life. I also remember the dress I wore to the Pomona Fair that day. It was one that my mom had made for me. My mom made most of my clothes in those days and I had many dresses because girls had to wear dresses to school then. This dress had many shades of lavender and purple and pink flowers on it with green leaves and vines running through it. Today the fabric would be described as a medium size calico print. The background was white. The skirt was full (one that passed the spin test) and the sleeves were short cap sleeves. I think it may have had some lavender ric rac on it as well. Funny how ric rac is making a come back.

Wow, that was easy, and it seems a little amusing to me how one memory lead to another and the memories that they led to. Try it sometime...it's quite fun.

A New Week

Well, where to start...Leslie, Gina and I went to the Corn Wagon in Springville on Friday. We all got some goodies. You might question my need for more fabric...do I need more...heck no, but I'll never have enough. I got some civil war repros so I can get started on my Dear Jane Quilt. This is a quilt made by a woman, named Jane, that lived during Civil War times. She worked on a quilt during the war to help pass the time. There are 255 blocks in the quilt, so this one is going to be a long time in the making. My delema at present is...do I make the whole quilt by hand or do I use the machine? If I choose to do it by hand, then I will want to hand quilt it, which will extend my finish date by months, maybe even a year or more. If I do it by machine it's still going to take a long time. I think I'm leaning toward handmade on this one. I think it would be more appropriate for the design, fabrics (all 100% cotton-that's all that was available then), and time in history. If I ever figure out how to get pics on my blog then I'll be sharing my progress with you, not only in word, but visually as well.

I decided, at the beginning of the year, that I was going to do mostly, if not all, handmade gifts for Christmas this year. Well, projects abound. I have several going all the time, but what self -respecting crafter wouldn't have more than one project going at the same time? That's why the term "wip" was invented. For those of you who don't know...wip stands for work in progress--what else.

Can't remember my work schedule for the week, at present, but I don't think I have any days off during the week, so that would mean that I don't have a day off until next Sunday. RATS!! Less time to craft. I keep promising myself that I'm not going to pick up any extra shifts, but somehow the extras always seem to show up on my schedule. Oh well, I'm very grateful that I have not only 1 job, but 2.

I hope that you all have a GREAT week filled with tonz o fun!

Once Again...What's With the Weather?????

By my reconing, it's Spring, or at least I thought it was, after all, it's the 24th of April. This past week the weather has been pretty nice, but this afternoon I think that Mother Nature must have been in a bad mood or maybe she was just letting all of us know that we shouldn't take her for granted. She threw a pretty good snow, yes, that's right, I said S-N-O-W, storm at us . It had been cloudy all day and colder than earlier this week and then this afternoon...BAMMMMMMMMMM!!! I was in American Fork when the storm hit. I tried to get pics of the snow falling, some flakes the size of quarters (but my phone was full as were both of my photo cards) oh and the wind H-O-L-Y--C-O-W!!! This is the kind of thing one would expect in January. Hummmmmm, come to think of it we did have this kind of thing in January.

I'm still waiting for my tulips to bloom. There are lots of buds, but no flowers yet.

I hope that all are having a wonderful week, in spite of the weather.

What's With the Weather???

What's with the weather around here??? One day it's over 80 and the next day it's snowing!!! That's right, snowing. It was a whopping 31 degrees on my way home from work last night and an even colder 27 degrees on my way to work this morning!!! I thought Spring was here.

Not too much going on this week. I did have Monday off so I worked in the yard. It felt good to get out in the sunshine (Monday was the over 80 day). I miss living in a climate where I can plant all year round, but I do love the change of seasons here.

I have 2-12 hour days under my belt so far this week. Ssssssssssshhhhhhhhhhhhhh don't tell Dr. Cook because he doesn't want me working more than 8 hours a day. Tomorrow will be an 8 hour day and then Thursday and Friday will be 6 hours each, oh yeah, and then there's Sunday. I think I'm working Sunday too. Sound exciting?????? It's not.

I hope that everyone has a great week!

Here's to more sunshine!!!

Conference Weekend

Oh, how I love this time of year! It has been Conference Weekend and I was blessed to be able to watch 3 of the 4 general sessions. While I missed seeing and hearing from Pres. Hinklely, I know that Pres. Monson is fulfilling the calling that the Lord has been preparing him for throughout his life. What wonderful talks were given and sound advise to all. I saw Mary Ellen several times when the Choir was singing and on The Spoken Word, which preceeded this mornings session.

While watching Congerence this morning I decided to get some yarn and knitting needles out. I started a pair of socks. They're black, grey, red, and white. Addie came to visit this evening and pulled some yarn out of my scrap box. It was some left over yarn from some previous project, pink, orange, turquoise, green, and yellow verigated. She asked if I would knit her some socks from the yarn. I told her that there wasn't enough yarn to knit some socks for her but that there might be enough to knit her some slippers. She was ok with that so I made her a pair of slippers. I used the pattern that my mom taught my Brownie Troop forever ago. Amazing I can still remember the pattern.

Spring is here even tho' we might get snow tomorrow morning (forcast says that it might get up into the high 60's by next weekend). My tulips are doing great. No flowers yet, but they're getting bigger. The roses are starting to send out new shoots and the weeds are starting to rear their unwanted heads. I hope to get a few more blueberries this year. I only got half a dozen last year, but that was from a first year bear root plant. Also hope that there will be some boysenberries this year too.

I was supposed to be off tomorrow, but told one of the people I work with that I would work part of her shift (12-17). A short shift to be sure, but tomorrow is the first day that the restructuring of our department goes into action. It will be interesting to see how things go. Monday's usually start out slow but by 1700 are getting really busy and continue to get busier as the night goes on. I'm glad I'll be off at 1700.

As I close this entry, I am remembering that today in the closing session of Conference that Pres. Monson asked us to pray for him and said that he would be praying for us. What a wonderful blessing to have the opportunity to pray for our prophet and, in turn, have him pray for us. We are truly a blessed people.

Where Have the Last 6 Months Gone???

I can't believe it's been 6 mos since I last entered something here. There's been a lot going on since then.



One goal I have is to be a better Blogger and keep up to try to do a better job at keeping up. I also want to make my look really fun with pictures and pretty backgrounds, like so many of yours. Do they give lessons for those of us that are Blog Challenged? Any suggestions, directions, volunteers would be greatly appreciated.



The sewing bug has bitten in a big way. Since my surgery, last December, I've been sewing up a storm. Michelle and Gina went through my fabric and got it all organized while I was recooperating and since I've been able to sit up to the sewing machine I don't think a days gone by that I haven't used it for something. I found a blog where a lady had made a quilt strictly from her stash where she shared the measurements and pics of all of her blocks. Well, now that my stash was in order, I had no trouble choosing fabrics to follow along with her challenge. I actually didn't start until she was done, but, I got all 12 squares made in about a week and a half and just have to put them together. After that, I thought, hummmmmm, if I can make a whole (twin size) quilt from my stast then what else might I be able to do with it. Well, most recently I've been making tote bags, all kinds of tote bags. I just finished one, for a girl at work, tonight. She requested green. Well, her bag is about 5 different green prints with lots of green metalic quilting on it. I also made a "tassel" out of several shades of green beads to add to the "bling" that she so dearly loves. She'll be so happy (I hope) to get tomorrow. I've also been doing a lot of quilt blocks, tried some crazy quilt blocks-fun and very creative, aprons, and pin cushions. I've made pillows and, of course, some clothes. In the two months I was off work I got a lot of things made, but have slowed down,, ever so slightly, since going back to work. When I figure out how to add pictures to my blog I'll share some with you of the fun I've been having.



We woke up to snow yesterday, after several days of nice weather. It was really icy when I went to work this AM. The first call I took was a lady asking if there had been any MVA's today??!!! Had she not been outside??? Cars were sliding all over the place, more than I'd seen all winter...I hope she found her friend, because he wasn't in our Emergency Department.



I can hardly wait for the tulips in the front yard to bloom. After adding a lot of amendments and working the soil in the front planters, I planted over 100 bulbs last Oct and it's great to see them all coming up. I scored last summer when I was at work and asked the head grounds keeper what they did with the bulbs after they had bloomed. He told me that they just pulled them up and tossed them, so I asked him if I could have them. He told me that if I wanted to dig them out I could have them, so I went to work early one day with turning fork and 5 gallon bucket in hand and dug them up. I left them in the bucket down in the basement, with stems and leaves on them until it was time to plant them last Fall.



To be honest, I'm quite suprized that anything grows in this soil. It's, in my opinion, being nice to refer to this stuff on the ground as soil. It, again in my opinion, is worse that dirt! I miss my California soil, but with a lot more work, rock removal, and a lot more trips to Home Depot/Lowes (my home away from home) to get more amendments I will get this "soil" into shape. Mike, one of the RN's I work with, volunteered his chicken manure. Never used it before, but I've been told that it's good for the soil. He even said that he'd deliver it! I might just have to take him up on that one.

Happy April to all!