Happy Birthday Joseph!

Today is a day of celebration. Eighteen years ago my youngest child was born. He is such a sweet hearted boy who loves life. Joseph is so smart he amazes me sometimes.
He has the biggest heart and not ashamed to show his love.
I love my baby!

Diane

Tag I'm it...

My quilt twin Paula tagged me for Fluff Five. I am not sure how entertaining this will be, but here I go.

Five Things Found in Your Bag/Purse:
Up until Monday evening I had not carried a purse for over two years .

1. My red business card holder which actually holds my drivers license, debit card, and folding money.
2. My new iPod :^)
3. Cell phone
4. hand sanitizer
5. medicine tin with Ibuprofen, Sudafed,Benadryl (can you tell I have allergies?)


Five Favorite things in your room:

1.My new bed!!! I love my mattresses!
2. The stack of books I like to read. Now that Ray is gone most of the time I read alot.
3. Quilted wall hanging that Ray's Granny made for us.
4.Quilt that Ray's Grandma made.
5. Quilt that Granny made.

Five Things you have always wanted to do:

1. Go to college
2. Be a nurse
3. Travel to New Zealand
4. Travel to Australia
5. Teach

Five things you are currently into:

1. Learning new quilting skills : curved piecing, machine applique, machine embroidery
2. House hunting
3. Culling junk from my house
4. Staying on my youngest son's back until he finishes everything that is due before graduation!
5. Spending as much time as I can with my friends in Mobile before I move away.

Not too interesting huh? LOL

Later
Diane

Back in the Saddle...

Today was the first day back in the quilt shop in over a week. There was so much stock that needed to be entered in the computer and put on the shelves, it took all day to complete it. It was fun though, since I got first pick! LOL

Have you ever tried InvisGrip? It is great for the back of rulers and templates so they don't slide around on the fabric while you are trying to cut.
I love this new book! I think it would make a great snuggle quilt for my Pastor's wife, and with my new mad Applique skills I could whip this one out in no time! Yep, I'm delusional! LOL

I am not an art quilter, but I have been influenced lately by my friends who are game for more arty stuff, especially Suzanne. She recommended this book to me and told me to "give it a go".

I absolutely adore Kim Diehl's books! I am always drawn to each and every pattern, in this book my favorite is the Christmas Magic table top quilt.Oh so cute!

This Presencia 60/3 thread was recommended by Harriet Hargrave when I took her Machine Applique class in March. I have been a Superior thread gal for a long time and I really love the Masterpiece thread, but I am willing to give this a try if Harriet recommends it. I will let you know what I think just as soon as I use it.

Well the day was long and I am tired so I am going to head to bed with my new books and look at them till I fall asleep.

Later

Diane

Home

Be it ever so humble, there is no place like it!

I am home after spending a wonderful, fantastic, restful, perfect week away in Florida with my youngest son and my husband. We spent the first two days driving from place to place trying to get me oriented and looking at areas, towns and neighborhoods. I have decided I don't want to live in Bradenton. It is too BIG! It is very congested and has lots of people. I like people, but don't necessarily want to live with all of them. :^)

We looked in Parrish and found a neighborhood or two that we liked. I found a wonderful piece of property that had a nice house but after looking at the asking price decided I didn't need all that much land. LOL!

We didn't look in Tampa but I know we will when we go back in May.

The cost of housing is much higher in Florida than in Alabama. To buy the same square footage in Florida that we have here will cost us approximately $150,000 more. With only 1,700 sq ft right now we wanted just a tad more but probably won't get it, as housing is just too much. I would like to know what everyone there does for a living to afford to live there! LOL

I'm not going to worry about it, the Lord is putting us there and the Lord can and will take care of our needs.

One neighborhood we looked at in Bradenton had such beautiful walking trails and ponds we saw some sandhill cranes while driving through.

Aren't the babies cute?
On my husband's camera he has pictures of Osprey and an alligator that was swimming in the lake where we went fishing.
Speaking of fishing, my youngest hasn't had much chance to do it much in his lifetime, but man does he love to do it! He is a fisherman my Papa would have loved to fish with. No fussing about the heat, bugs, bait, nothing! he was always the last one to reel his line in at the end of the evening. We would leave Disney World and be headed back to the hotel and he would say, "Hey Dad, you wanna go fishing now?" knowing Ray would rather fish than eat or sleep. So Ray would speed up and run up to our room grab the gear and off we would go until dark.

This is my guys right after Joseph caught a catfish. It's funny how every single time he goes fishing he catches a catfish. He is fishing for Bluegill mainly, and he caught a lot!

Aren't these colors pretty? They were prettier in person, but this gives you an idea. Honestly if we could afford acreage with a pond I would probably be a happy person and I know Ray and Joseph would be ecstatic.

When we weren't looking for a place to live or fishing we were visiting our other favorite place. I have always loved the Magic Kingdom. We have not been there in 12 years so this was an eye opening experience. It is much more crowded than it was then. It is a little less magical than it was the first time I went and it is starting to show it's age but I still loved it. Hey when I was 38 years old I had a few scars and bumps and I didn't have near as many people running all over me.

I will post more later, I am going to take a nap. After yesterday's drive I am pooped!

Later

Diane

snap shots of my past week

Two weekends ago I was a vendor at the Pensacola quilt show. They have some wonderful quilters in that group!

This quilt was made from a pattern designed for me. She bought the pattern from me 2 years ago and made it now she has earned a first place ribbon! Great job!

These sweet ladies you have seen before but they are my wonder gals! I emailed them and asked for used books to donate to a local assisted living home that my son is volunteering at. They came through in a big way.

I am still around

I have been so busy I forgot to post! I know everyone has times like this where it seems every deadline is at the same time.

I have a senior in high school who not only is graduating in six weeks, he has senior project due in less than two weeks, 18th birthday in 2-1/2 weeks, last concert of his high school career in four weeks, 20 hours of community service due in a 10 days, and the big drivers license test. The only problem with all of this, he doesn't drive alone yet! So I have to go everywhere he goes!

I have business stuff to close up and transfer, fabric to dye, a dye class to teach, and thread to deliver. I have decided to donate books I know I will not read again to a local assisted living facility, so have to get them all boxed up and delivered.

I have been watching an EBay auction on a Bernina 1230 and won it last night. I am so excited. Now I am having problems with Pay Pal! They want me to verify something, but for some reason it won't let me. I called my husband who I think is all knowing about everything I don't know anything about, but he told me he didn't know what to do. Now don't you think that was a bit rude?! LOL I think he should be able to fix any and all of my problems! LOL

Anyway, today is guild business meeting day and I have to head off to that, then haul my youngest to a community service appointment and then get home to ... you understand.

Diane

Wee!

I am so excited I can hardly stand it. Today I got a package and inside was an iPod! I have been hemming and hawing about whether I wanted one or not. Whether I would actually use one or not. I love to listen to audio books and country music. Not only do I love to listen to country music but I love to listen to it loud, much louder than those around me care for. One of the reasons I don't mind driving alone is I like to turn the radio up loud and sing along. Believe me the music needs to be loud to drown out my sour notes. Anyway I have been saving my money for months to buy my sweet husband a special gift. I have always hated buying him gifts for his birthday or anniversary or anytime out of the checking account. He is the only paid worker in this marriage so it always felt to me like he was buying his own gift. I didn't like that. So usually he gets a much smaller gift that I have saved for out of teaching a class, or making something and selling it. Well I just had a really profitable show and had more than enough to buy his gift so I was able to also buy me the iPod. I am so excited!

The first thing I loaded on it was my collection on Jan Karon's Mitford series books. I just adore listening to her tales of Mitford and Father Tim and Dooley. I feel the stress of life melt away as I listen to the books. I recommend them to anyone who enjoys a nice sweet story.

Tomorrow my oldest son is planning on taking me to dinner and then to the house to help me load my vast George Strait music collection. I don't have a CD-Rom drive on my computer so he is going to do all of the loading for me. How sweet of him!

At the quilt show this past weekend in Pensacola FL. I bought a really nifty set of templates by Atkinson Designs to make the pattern "Winner's Bouquet".

I have been playing around with it today and having a fun time. I will post a picture tomorrow of what I sewed today. It really isn't hard. I am usually sceptical when it comes to curved seams, but this one really does go together well, with no headache at all. I am impressed!

Since Ray is gone and I don't keep to a schedule when he is away I just realized I have not eaten since lunch at noon. No wonder I am starving! I think I will go have a bowl of cereal and listen to some more Mitford stories.

Diane