sooner or later

So now she will sit around and be nervous until I take her to the Post Office for her flight to Australia. Her bag is packed, she has a hostess gift, a little money and her passport.

I couldn't sit and hold her hand while she fretted about whether this was a going to be an easy hop or not, so I went shopping.

Picked up a bunch of stuff at the dollar store for prizes for Art Camp. My daughter and I are in charge of the challenge this year. Thrums. You have to use 'em to make something. If you're not a weaver, thrums are the leftover strings when you've finished a project and are cutting it off the loom. There is about a half yard of waste at the end of the warp and it can be quite a big handful - always seems a shame to toss it out, so we are challenging the weavers to make something of it. It's long enough to stitch with, make tassels with, lots of things. You never throw anything away, right? so you know.

The prizes are going to be really neat. We got a bunch of stuff and we're going to.... well, it has to be a surprise. I'll let you know later. Even take photos. But you'll have to wait until March.

The other thing I'm working: ATCs to send out for birthday RAKs. I've already sent two out for the early ones, but these are getting a little more futz on them. Having a good time.



Waited all weekend to post this photo. Trouble in paradise. But it's all right now....

The grass is getting a slow soak. The traffic is a mess or so NPR says. The glue is not drying upstairs. My new shoes are suede. Rain is only welcome once in a while. This looks like the start of another monsoon.

We've been having sunny crisp days lately. Perfect for gardening, but I have no big outdoor planting projects planned for this year. Just waiting for the squirrels to finish tilling the raised beds looking for nuts.

I do want to finish the quarter circle patio, but we still have big tree roots to remove and a decision to be made on the kind of surface to put down. If we wait, the idea will come to us. Or I'll give up and just let the grass grow back.

There is what looks like an opening between my garden and the neighbor's that Peter Rabbit would have made. It is smooth from the belly of some animal who prefers to sneak under fences than run along the top rail. There is a ghostly white cat that creeps behind the garage occasionally when I drive in at night. Perhaps this is her escape route.

I finished some swapping projects this weekend. Struggled with the decorations - still more to put away. I know they multiply while out of the boxes. Every year I have to find more boxes to store them all. Cleaned out a drawer and tossed out some stuff and have to find homes for other things.

This afternoon we will be lunching at Chuck E. Cheese's table by invitation. Short people will be running around in circles, much screaming and giggling to be heard.



My grandson found a frog for me at Chuckie's place.

Sometimes in a frenzy, sometimes in awe, we opened our presents on Christmas Eve. Many of them handmade with love and thoughtfulness. The store bought ones selected carefully to please the recipient no end.

My English muffins from scratch turned out great. The grill king did his magic in the evening. We toured the neighborhood to see the lights. The travelers are off today on visits to family in other states. The weather here is beautiful and crisp. We are quietly getting to know our new toys today and enjoying the sweet goodies leftover from yesterday. Later I'll try another new recipe, crab cakes with wasabi mayo and we may even go to the movies.

I've been emptying a bobbin every day at the loom and feeling very virtuous about it. Also, finished off the coffee cup cuff that J started yesterday. One last gift for the coffee enthusiast in Fort Worth. I also got a little time at my work table. All in all, I'm enjoying the long weekend and not looking forward to going back in to the office. At least, things are at a stand still because everyone else in the world is taking long vacations and no business other than retailing is taking place. The phones will be quiet. Hopefully, no crisis will occur until 2008.

Before I put the binding on it, I looked at the July journal quilt and decided my daughter was right. It wasn't really me and so I cut the darn thing up. So now I have finished a completely different project and one with a deadline. With a little tweaking, this will become my postcards for the Romance swap. They're mostly red, with hearts on each one of the three. I printed out a card stock back and fused and stitched it on. They are ready to be mailed. I should probably hit them with a bit of spray sealer since it is inkjet printing and it's raining here again. More photos later after the tweaking.



On Sharon B's CQ blog (see link in my right sidebar), she is looking for comments to help her decide on her 2008 challenge. She has a large readership and motivates a lot of people to stitch more. I put in my vote for a finishing-up-projects kind of a challenge but mostly the votes are going in the pocket of a design thing. I want to see the hanging chad on this ballot. Oh, well, I suppose I must struggle on alone in my quest to find the bottom of the stack of the stuff I want to finish.

Thick fog blanketed our neighborhood this morning as I followed the little truck to our favorite mechanic's shop. My mini-van this time. Electrical problems. Old age, hardening of the circuitry, no doubt.
We rented a car over the weekend to drive up north to see the grill king's mom in her new digs. Nice place, a little smaller than the last one, feels more like a care facility. There's a person at the front desk and aides come in to refill her water glass and dole out her medicine. But she is doing well by all indications. We visited a long time on Saturday and almost took her out for brunch yesterday, but she decided it would not be a wise choice for her.
I worked on my July journal quilt, stitching on squares and rectangles of fabric I had selected before our cruise. All red, white and blue. I was planning to place a red sparkly net over the top and FMQ it but the net makes the white parts go pinkish - not what I was going for at all. I may try for a gold net now that I'm at home. Anyway the squares are all down, raw edged and handstitched in bold embroidery thread. I want to put some foiling on it, too.
While we were driving, we listened to a sci-fi fantasy book on CD and took a back way into the big city. Pleasant drive. A stop for kolaches in West, Texas on the way north and a stop at Dairy Queen for a shake on the way home. Road trip traditions.
I crocheted a goddess figure. I have to finish her arms - tiny little arms and then stuff her and decide what else she needs. So I started two new projects!

Perfect time for housecleaning. Swept out the cobwebs, moved it to a new patch of grass and showed it off to the new tenant. The Boogie really liked the playhouse and my granddaughter is too tall for it now although she is loath to completely sign it over entirely. I think it will be an extended lease arrangement.

Yesterday was our weavers study group meeting and I started a felted thingie. No idea what it will be. Just felt the need to punch something. Started off with single needle handfelting and finished up running it around under Nancy's new Janone felting machine. Made fast work of it. Weather was gorgeous and we sat out on Anita's deck and had a great afternoon.

Experimenting this morning with a sun print using a transparency. Also started stitching some fabric ATCs - frogs, of course. Photos later if things look good.

The sweet gum tree is showing a little yellow and leaves are falling one at a time this morning. One more cold breeze and the leaf drifts will begin to pile up. This looks like a quilt wanting to be stitched.

Just couldn't go to sleep with this one sitting on my worktable. I finally found the perfect additions after auditioning everything or almost everything in the house. I'm happy to let this move on now. I added the negative strip and shrink plastic portrait, the magazine skyline and words below it. Also rubbed a bit of copper on the scrim.

Huge rain storm today. After I spent the morning moving the hose around the house watering. I swear it was a perfectly clear morning and no rain in sight. We spent the afternoon taking down the weaver's show. I didn't sell much of my stuff. I guess an etsy shop is the next project. But overall, the show was successful - very close to the best dollar volume to date and the venue was much better than the last few years.

So here is what it looked like on my ride home last night... a little ominous on the horizon.


Lots of thunder and lightning right overhead. Very low visibility.


Cars moving slowly and carefully.


Then closer to home, I've exited the freeway and the curbs are underwater. I need to make a right turn at the next intersection, but I'm way to the left side of the road to avoid the deep water.


I got to the crosswalk of the intersection. The big trucks and SUVs are racing through the floodwaters swamping the smaller cars, so I hesitate a bit. I've missed the opportunity to take the U-turn lane. I have no good options. I use the wheelchair ramp in the sidewalk to jump the curb to my left and maneaver around the pillars that support the freeway overhead and get to the U-turn lane which is high and dry. The other side of the access road is also in good shape so I sneak across between the fast moving pickup trucks and drive into the parking lot of the Walmart. The far end of the parking lot is swamped and cars are sitting in it with their flashers on. Lots of people are sitting in their cars waiting for the deluge to end.

Finally it slows to a drizzle and I get out and spend a another hour just wandering around picking up a few groceries - nothing that might melt or go off temp cause I don't know how soon I'll be able to get home which is less than two miles away. I called the grill king and let him know where I was. He said our street was flooded and he had moved the little truck up into the driveway and he had to wade out there to do that. Later our phone went out so I was glad I'd called.

I didn't get home till after 8:30.