Late Post

I had intended to do this post yesterday, but the day just got away from me. We are putting together a cookbook at my church and I am one of the ones who is typing every body's recipes into the computer so they can be emailed to the publisher. It was slow at work yesterday and so I got really caught up in typing. I hope to get lots more typed today. We still have lots and lots to type. Some people have emailed theirs to me which has made it a lot easier. But you know there are lots of older ladies and some young in the church who don't even own a computer, much less know about email!

This past weekend was a busy one. Hubby and the kids and I went to Mobile, which is 70 miles south of here, to have Tara's senior pictures taken at Olan Mills. She had them taken at school but hubby did not like any of them. Olan Mills did a much better job and the price is much, much better! We also were able to get a couple pictures taken with Tara and Keith together. Hubby wanted all of us to have our pictures taken together but I did not want to do that as our daughter, Amber, was at college and not with us. We are gonna go back sometime when Amber is home for a long visit and can go with us. I would love to have a family portrait taken. I don't think we have ever had a family portrait done of the five of us. We had one taken back in 1990 when Amber was 3 and I was pregnant with Tara.

Of course while we were in Mobile I had to go to the fabric store. So after we got through at the photographers they dropped me off at the fabric store and went to do some other stuff. I really liked that. If they are all there with me they will bug me to death asking me when I am gonna be ready to leave! As it was they were gone for quiet a while and so I got to browse around. I didn't buy much, but I did meet a very nice lady named Lillie. She makes purses and such. She had a beautiful purse with her that she had made. She had the cutest poodle. He reminded me of a little poodle I had for years named Buffy. I will have to post her picture on here sometime. Anyway, Lillie had her poodle in the neatest thing. It is just like a baby stroller only it has mesh all around it and a zipper so you can put the dog in and he is secure but can see and breath, of course. I think that is so neat! If I still had my Buffy I would get her one.

I did buy this book "Warm Fuzzies" by Betz White. It is full of great things to make. I really want one of the cupcake pincushions. I was reading Joanna's blog this morning called Applique Today and she had purchased the same book! I can't wait to make something out of it!

I also bought these two great pieces of fabric! I don't know what I am gonna make out of them yet, but I just fell in love with them and had to have them!
Sunday afternoon I did a little baking! I don't do too much of that. I made this great cake called Ooee Gooee cake. It is delicious! When I was in my early twenties, before I got married, this lady at church used to make this all the time. She is the sweetest lady. She has always been like a second mama to me. Her name is Sister Willie. Anyway, this is the best cake. My daughter, Tara, loves it and keeps telling me I need to make more and more of them! So I guess I will!

All alone on Thursday night

It's Thursday night and I am all alone. Well, not really, as my dad is in the other room. But hubby is working and the kids have gone to the football game. Tonight's game is a big game. Our high school team is playing their biggest rival!

I was driving home from work this evening and started thinking that I would love to go to the Mexican restaurant to eat, but of course I didn't want to go by myself. So I was trying to figure out who I could ask to go with me. There really wasn't anyone to ask. I kept thinking about my best friend, Barbara. If you have been following my blog then you know that Barbara got married to her childhood sweetheart and moved all the way across the country to Minnesota in May! I have really missed her. I know that if she were still here I could have called her and she would have went with me to eat. And we would have had a great time. So I was thinking about her and missing her when I got home. Hubby had gotten the mail and put it on my dresser. On the very top was a card from Barbara! I tore it open and here are pictures of the front and inside:

She also wrote a personal message on one side of the inside. It made me so happy to get the card, but also sad. Cause it made me miss her all the more. Now don't think we don't keep in touch, we do. We email each other several times a day and talk to each other almost every night on the phone. But it is just not the same as knowing that she is in the same town as me. So after getting the card I started telling my hubby about how I had been thinking about her and wishing she were here to go out to eat with me and then I come home to find this card and I started to cry. Later Barbara called me on the phone and I told her about everything and how getting the card made me cry. She said she wasn't gonna send me anymore cards! I just laughed. I sure miss her. I'm happy for her, that's for sure. I'm just thinking now that I need to buy a plane ticket next year when I get my income tax refund and take a weeks vacation and fly up to see her! What fun that would be!

Scrubs & cats

Good Morning! It is such a beautiful cool morning here today! It was 54 degrees when I woke up this morning! I am so glad for some cooler weather.

Where I work we sell scrubs (nurses uniforms). Some of the scrubs are made from some of the most beautiful fabric! I just want to buy them, cut them up and make something out of them! The one below of butterflies is one of several I was pricing and hanging up yesterday. Isn't it the greatest print of butterflies? I would love to have a purse of this fabric! Wish I knew where they got their fabric. I wonder if this fabric was designed and sold strictly to the manufacture of these scrubs. I think I am gonna have to check into that!

Here is a close-up of the butterflies.
This is another scrub top we have in the store. Sorry the picture is a little blurry. I have looked at it all summer wishing I had some fabric like it. They went on clearance yesterday and so I am buying the largest size we have, which is a 3XL and there is quiet a lot of fabric in a 3XL! Here is a close-up of the cat print.
Yesterday before leaving for church I had left a shoe box on my bed. When we got home guess who was in the bottom part of the box? That's right, Lilie!
Then, Amber's cat, Apollo, jumped up on the bed and put his nose right down on top of Lilie's head. I tried to get a picture of that, but he moved to fast. Then he decided to get into the lid of the shoebox. The boxes were about a foot apart and so Tara pushed them a little closer so I could get a picture of the two of them! They are such a hoot!

Below is Apollo looking at me. He is blind in his right eye and so that is why it is so dark. Apollo kept turning around in the box and finally decided it was just too small for him, so he got out and went somewhere else. Lilie slept in that box all the rest of the evening. When I went to bed at 10pm I picked her up, box and all, and carried her to Tara's room where she sleeps every night.

Making quilts & Penny

It has been a busy morning and I have not had time to sit and type this post. I had a very productive weekend! It makes me feel so good. I got all my laundry done Friday night and went early Saturday morning to get groceries so I would have lots of time to sew. Hubby was on the day shift Saturday and Sunday and I wanted to be through with the sewing by the time he got home at 6pm. I sewed lots of squares together on the quilt I am making for my son and one I am making for myself. Sunday after church I started sewing again and also started work on a quilt for my daughter. I won't tell you which one as they will be reading this soon. Of course I plan to start work on the other daughter one this week, also. I know it sound crazy to be working on 4 quilts at one time, but it is so neat. I just have the squares layed out all over my bed and have my sewing machine set up next to it and sew away! I should have taken pictures of what I got sewed but was so busy getting things put away before hubby got home from work, that I didn't think about it.
I did get this picture of Molly helping me hold down my squares! I had the fan blowing on me as I get so hot all the time and my squares were trying to blow all over the place. I was trying to find things to lay on them when along comes Molly and solved that problem! I told my daughter, Tara, to grab the camera so I could get Molly's pic. Those cats of ours love to lay on all sorts of things!

I was so excited about all the sewing I got done and can't wait to get back at it. I also got my very first order to make a quilt for someone who is actually going to pay me for it! A lady at church heard me telling my pastor's wife that I was making some quilts and she asked me about making one for her son. I told her, of course I would! So I have to draw it out and figure the price and get back with her. I was so excited! I have never sold a quilt before! This will be a first! Who knows this could be the start of something!

You know how sometimes you are just sitting thinking about different things and something will pop into your head and make you remember something or someone who is no longer here but that really meant a lot to you? Well, this happened to me in the wee hours of the morning yesterday. I woke up when hubby left for work at 5:30am and for some reason I started thinking about a dog we used to have named, Penny.
Penny was a very special dog. My Daddy found her along side of the road when she was a tiny puppy. It was out in the middle of no where and so he figured someone had just put her out cause they didn't want her. He brought her home to my Mama and told her he thought she was part chichuahua and that she would make a good inside dog. As you can see from the photo below she was definitely not chihuahua! We kept her in the house until she got so big she had to go outside. We used to live about 1/2 mile from the center of town and I used to ride my bike to town on Saturdays. Penny would always go with me. She was so smart. When we would come to a road to cross I would hold out my hand and she would stop. When I put my hand down she knew it was safe to cross. If I went into a store she would sit right next to my bike and wait on me. She was very friendly to everyone and never tried to bark or growl at anyone going in or out of the stores or walking along the sidewalks. When I stopped at this little dairy bar in town to get a coke I would always get her a cup of water. We had her a lot of years and she eventually got too old to go to town with me. The last time I let her go with me I had to keep stopping and waiting for her to catch up and she would just be panting. She was just too old to keep up anymore. So from then on when I would ride my bike Mama would have to put her into our utility room till I got out of site so she wouldn't follow me. Then Mama would let her out.
When our neighbors got two new puppies, Penny liked to mother them. Those puppies had a habit of laying out in the road. I noticed that if Penny heard or saw a car coming she would run out and nudge the puppies out of the road.
Another funny thing that happened with Penny is the night she rode over to my Daddy's house with us. You see, my parents divorced when I was 15 years old and my dad remarried and moved across town. He and his wife divorced a few years later and 10 years after he divorced my Mama he came back and they were together for the last 20 years of her life. But anyway, when Daddy first got Penny he was living with us, of course, so Penny was used to him coming home every night and staying. After the divorce Daddy would come visit, but then he would always leave. One night he was over at our house and he had had a bit too much to drink so I had to drive him home. When we go into the car to leave Penny jumped in the car on my Daddy's lap. I tried to get her to get out of the car but she wouldn't go. Daddy said just to let her ride with us. So she did. My cousin followed me over to my dads to bring me back home. When we got to Daddy's house he and Penny got out and Penny started walking all around the yard. I opened my cousins car door and kept trying to get Penny to get in the car. She just wouldn't do it. She walked right up next to my dad who was unlocking his house door. I told Daddy that Penny wouldn't get in the car. Do you know my dad looked down at Penny and told her she had to go back home with me and then Penny turned and walked over to my cousins car and got right in! She was one smart dog! I think that Penny just wanted to know where it was that Daddy went when he left our house. For years he stayed home and then all of a sudden he didn't come home anymore and she was wondering why!
I love the picture I took of Penny below. She was pretty old by the time this picture was taken. But I told her to smile and she did! Can you see her smiling? I think we had her about 7 or 8 years when she died. I still miss that dog. She was one in a million.

Martha Stewart

I was so excited to discover that Martha has a blog! She is having a contest over at her blog so pop on over and check it out!

Sweet daughter & friend's quilt

My daughter, Amber, is so sweet. Look at the lovely journal she sent to me! She also sent me some watercolor pencils. She and I are going to start journaling together and post pictures of our journal pages so we can each see the others! This is a really nice journal with nice thick pages.
This is my first attempt at journaling. I am afraid it is not very good. I learned that I should have used the watercolor pencils first and then did the pasting and writing. Consequently a couple of my pictures got messed up and my writing smeared. Oh well, live and learn is what I always say. I still think my mama looks beautiful in the pages.
The next two pictures are of my 86 year old friend, Mrs. Anderson, holding up the quilt that she embroidered and hand quilted and that I put together for her. I posted about it in an earlier post. Sorry my pictures are so dark. I contacted Nikon about it and they said that my camera does not have a very powerful flash. So I would not recommend anyone getting a Nikon Coolpix S5 camera. It does fine outside, but awful inside. As soon as I can I will be getting a new camera with a better flash. I am checking cameras out on line this time and reading all the reviews that people post who have different cameras. If anyone has a really great point and shoot camera that makes really great indoor pictures, please let me know. I don't want to mess up and get a lowsey camera again.

Getting ready to make a quilt

I went to a yard sale a while back and bought two large bags of fabric scraps. These were some really nice cotton prints. I have spent the last week cutting the scraps into squares. Some of the scraps were large enough for 4 inch squares. Some I cut into 3-1/2 inch squares and then some were only wide enough to cut 2-1/2 inch squares. I still have a little more fabric to cut, but I hope to start sewing on some quilts soon. I want to just make some scrappy quilts for everyone's bed around here. The ones I made 14 years ago have been used well and are wearing out. I am really excited to start sewing! I will keep you updated on my progress.

ANOTHER GIVEAWAY!

Jacquelynne over at The Noble Wife is having a fantastic giveaway! Hop on over and check it out!

Followers

I just added the "Followers" gadget to my blog. If you follow my blog regularly please scroll down and look under my slide show on the left and you will see it there, then click on Follow This Blog. Thanks

Lily and the box

This is Lily. She belongs to my daughter, Tara. Lily love boxes. She thinks she has to get into any box she sees, no matter the size! There was an empty Kleenex box on my bed and Lily saw it. She is looking into it thinking about how she is gonna fit into it!
She tried putting her head and front leg in, but couldn't seem to get the rest of her body in!
All she succeeded in doing was turning the box over!

So I decided to help her a little and tore the top open so she could fit better. She tired going front first but that didn't work.

So she tried going back end first but still found that to be a little to small. She kept falling over when she sat down.
So for a while she had her head and front paws in while she played with hubby with the box.
Finally the box wound up pushed up against hubby's side and she settled for part of her body being in it and went to sleep! What a cat!
She keeps us all laughing!

Giveaway

Lettie over at Polka Dot Pineapple is having a giveaway! To win all you do is leave a comment with your favorite holiday recipe and why it is your favorite. It is a great way to get some new recipes and sign up for a chance to win some lovely things! Lettie always has some really neat things that she makes! She comes up with the greatest ideas. She keeps adding to what she is giving away so whoever wins will really be a winner!!!

I am a Winner!

Received my giveaway package from Sandi over at A Legacy of Stitches! What great fabrics! Sandi is so nice. She had chosen a winner for the mystery basket but decided to give away two smaller baskets! I was one of the lucky winners! Thank you so much Sandi! Now I have to decide what I am going to make with these fabrics.

ANOTHER GIVEAWAY!

I guess you can all tell I love giveaways! You have to enter a lot to have a chance at winning one. Debbie over at Makin' Quilts is having a giveaway. Hop on over and check it out!

GIVEAWAY

Jane over at Jane's Fabrics and Quilts is having an awesome giveaway for her 53rd birthday! Check it out!

Hussif cover & a bookmark

It's Saturday evening and I have gotten a few things done today. I left for Wal-Mart early so I could get my grocery shopping done and get home. Well, three hours later I made it home! It just seems it takes me forever. There are always things I just have to look at! I also had to get some pictures printed out from my camera card. Now I used to upload my photos to wal-mart.com and have them printed at my local Wal-Mart and then pick them up. It was so nice and easy to do it that way. Then all of a sudden for some reason when I go to wal-mart.com and click on upload it will never finish loading so I can upload my photos. I have left it loading and walked off and done stuff, came back and it was still loading! I guess something is wrong with my computer. It works on my computer at work. I tested it there just to see. But I don't have my photo software on that computer and don't know if my boss would like it if I put it on there. So anyway, I finally made it home, got the groceries put away and started on the laundry.

I then finished my nieces bookmark I was making her for her birthday. I am going to send it along with some money to her. They live down close to Tampa, Florida and it has been almost three years since I have seen her. She is turning 12 this year.

After I finished the bookmark I started working on straightening out my closet some. I may have mentioned that I keep most all of my sewing stuff in my closet in my bedroom along with my clothes. I don't have very many clothes. I have never been a big clothes person. If I have one outfit to wear a day for a week I am happy. That would make 7 outfits total. I have 5 scrub sets that I wear to work. I wear the same one every Monday, the same one every Tuesday, and so forth. When one wears out then I will buy another. So the point of saying that about the clothes is to say I would rather save the closet space for my material! I don't know about everybody else, but I tend to have the habit of getting fabric or something else out to use and then not getting it put back where it goes. Therefore, after a period of time stuff is such a mess in my closet I can't seem to open the doors without something falling out at me. So once in a while I have to go through and get everything put back in it's right place. So I got everything all nice and neat now. It always looks so good when I get finished!

I did get this little hussif cover finished yesterday. In one of my earlier post I wrote about the small hussif I made. The front and back pockets are cross-stitch pieces I did back in 1981. I like to carry this hussif in my bag every day so that I always have pins, needles, thread, and scissors handy. But it seemed the cross-stitch was getting a little dirty and I was worried about it getting ruined. So I just made this simple little cover to put it in! I hand sewed two pieces of fabric together with felt in the middle. Did a running stitch around the big red flower and sewed on a big green button (which my son picked out) and then sewed on four snaps. Very quick and easy!
Here is a picture of the front of my hussif cover with it closed.

This is a side view of the hussif and hussif cover so you can see how it fits.

This is the inside of the hussif cover with the hussif.

This is the inside of my hussif cover with a close up of the hussif.

This is the front of my nieces bookmark.

This is the back of my nieces bookmark.

Hitching a ride!

I had to stop at the bank after work. I happened to look over at my passenger door and saw a green lizard sitting there! I do not like lizards. They scare me. I could just see the thing jumping over on me. Thank the Lord I have electric windows. I was able to let the window down and scooted it out with a bag. It wound up on the outside of my car looking in the window! It was so funny I had to take a picture! I'm sorry to say the little guy feel off as I started down the road. If my daughter, Tara, had been with me she would have caught it. She seems to love lizards. When I told her about it she told me I should have saved it for her! I told her I was scared it would jump on me and was not keeping it in my car!


I will never forget the day that my daughter Amber brought a frog into the house! She must have been about 8 or 9 years old at the time. She came in carrying her bucket and said look what I have. Then she turned the bucket up and dumped a frog on my floor! I like to have died. I think I screamed! She quickly put the bucket over the frog and then got something to slide it over so she could pick it up and still keep the top covered. I told her to take it back outside and not to ever bring a frog in again! I just can't stand frogs, either!

I'm a WINNER!

I won the give away over at On The Dot Creations She has been hosting lots of giveaways lately. The one I won was from Tonya over at Minis For Everyone. I won these cute little lollipops! I have never seen such tiny lollipops! They are the cutest thing! Ya'll be sure to pop over to her site and check out all the cute and creative things she makes! Thank you so much Tonya for the great giveaway! And thank you On the Dot Creations for hosting it!

What a Weekend!

Saturday was spent with my daughter, Amber, texting me back and forth about Hurricane Gustav. She was at work in Lafayette, Louisiana and they were watching the hurricane reports on TV and talking about it and it was making her scared and nervous. She wasn't sure whether to try and come home or not. I talked to her uncle, my hubby's twin who lives in Lafayette, and he told me he was not leaving Lafayette and for me to have Amber come over to his house and stay with him and his daughter. He said if the news reported that it was coming into a certain point at a category 5 then he would load the girls up and head to our house. Just as I got off the phone with him, Amber called me. I told her it would be best for her to stay at her uncles. That the traffic coming here would be unreal and then she would just have to turn around and go back. So she stayed. She had to work on Sunday, also, and it wound up only being her and one other girl and the owner at work. She works at a deli. She said that from 5:30pm till 8:30pm Sunday night the place was swamped. She said there were so many customers it was unreal. The owner was running the cash register and she and the other girl were making the sandwiches. She said the owner finally turned off the open sign when they ran out of bread! She was exhausted, but excited. The owner told her and the other girl that he was gonna pay them double time since they were the only ones who had came to work and had worked so hard and fast! I am proud of her for doing such a good job! I always knew she was a good worker. She has gotten several raises in the two years she has been there. So Sunday when she got off work she went over to her uncles and stayed. All in all it didn't get that bad there. A lot of wind and rain, but they never lost power and they didn't have any damage to my brother-in-law's house. I truly thank God for that! I don't know what is going on with her this morning as she has not called. She is probably still sleeping!

I spent Saturday night making a new purse. I have been trying to get this purse made for ages it seems. I just don't have anywhere really to work on sewing stuff. So Saturday I took my computer and printer off my desk and put my sewing machine on it and started sewing. I had asked hubby if this would be OK and he said yes. After two hours he said he wished I would hurry up and finish! The only other place I have to sew is in the den with my dad. I know it really disturbs him plus he likes it so hot in there I can't stand it!
Sunday morning I asked my hubby to take a picture of me modeling the purse. I didn't know he was going to take a black and white photo! But here it is anyway.

Below are photos of the front and the back of the purse that I took in color! The back and front basically look the same. I love the fabric with the birds. It reminds me of my mama, who loved birds. I was able to take my new purse to church, which is what I had planned. We had the second Sunday of our church's 50Th Anniversary Celebration.


Yesterday, I went over to a friends house to help her with her computer for a couple hours. She goes to my church. Another lady from church also came over and we had the best time. We were trying to figure out how to send her embroidery patterns straight from the computer to her embroidery machine, but never could get it to work. I'm not familiar with that kind of thing. Finally we had to just leave it. I told her to call the sewing machine company and maybe they could help.

After I got home I spent the afternoon working on a purse for my daughter, Tara. Hubby was at work so I figured it would be a good time to sew! As you can see below, my bed is my work area!

Here is the purse I made Tara. The fabric on the outside is some fabric that my mama was making me a pair of pants out of when I was about 10 years old. She never finished the pants, but somehow I managed to hang onto the fabric all theses years. So it is back in style as retro seventies! I was 10 in 1970. The fabric I used for the lining is some that my Aunt Vivian gave me. Tara saw a book cover I had made myself out of the 70's fabric and the fabric from Aunt Vivian. She said she loved that 70's fabric and would love a purse out of it. When I asked her if she wanted the fabric from Aunt Vivian for the lining she said yes. She said that way she will think of Wee Wee (what my kids called my mama) and Aunt Vivian every time she uses it. So I got it finished last night and she took it to school with her this morning! I tried to get her to model it for me last night to take a picture but she claimed she looked horrible! Now I don't think Tara ever looks horrible, but I hung it on her fan instead.

This is a picture of the lining of Tara's purse.

I suppose you all are wondering why my kids called my mama Wee Wee. Well, I had always wanted my kids to call my mama Granny. So when Amber was learning to talk and trying to say Granny my mama thought it sounded like Wee Wee and she thought that was so cute. So that is what stuck! When they got older they wouldn't call her that when talking about her to other people. They would just say my grandmother. My brother's wife thought it was a very strange name to call a grandmother and so her kids called my mama grandma. My niece, who is now 36 years old, called my mama Me ma. It is odd that one woman was called so many names by her different grandchildren. My kids call my daddy Paw, which is what he has always wanted all his grand kids to call him. But my oldest niece's mother taught her to call him Paw Paw. And my brother's kids call him grandpa. In my day you just called your grandparents grandma and grandpa! That is what we called both sets of grandparents.