Random Musings

Day 5 of no shoes for my man, and his pressure sore is greatly improving. It's amazing how something so small and in such a simple place can create such havoc on the body.  I'm thankful Bobby keeps his vanity in its place and is not afraid to wear houseshoes in public. That would be awful if life had to screech to a stop because of something so "small".  He was concerned about my reaction. To me, it's a no brainer:  wear shoes and have him lose a foot or have a stroke (people with paralysis have a condition that raises their blood pressure when there's a problem...the body's way of screaming "There's a problem here!" when the nervous system can't do it's rightful job), or wear houseshoes and us live life normally. Is there a choice? This seems to be the week for medical dramas...though one, like my friend Celia who has been about to pop for a month now, is pretty awesome. At 1pm today, the process begins for little Easton (who Bobby...

Yes, I know progress has two ss at the end, but that last S didn't fit in my cheer cadence.  You'll just have to live with it. I never did find my missing quilt square. I ended up buying a fat quarter of that fabric so I could make another one, and I am happy to report that the square is finished. :) I am making great progress in cleaning out my sewing room. Currently I've moved all boxes of scrap fabric (more shoeboxes than I realized!) onto the dining room table and am trying to figure out a way to sort/save/toss it all. Originally I thought I would simply sort everything by color, but the second box I opened was full of bags containing pieces of cut material. Alabama/Auburn colors cut into small pieces for a double ring wedding pattern do not match horse squares of brown and orange, nor 2" hot pink squares with grey stripes and white elephants or green flannel. Bobby says I should just make a crazy quilt, but I think that would be too crazy for even the craziest...

Over the past week I've been trying to ignore the mess in my quilting room and actually quilt. I was down to the last square I needed to complete (for a block of the month program), and I was missing a 4.5" square. I know it should be there because I sewed the two squares together, marked the diagonal line, stitched on either side of it, then cut on the line I marked, which should make FOUR squares made up of two triangles each. So how did I wind up with only THREE squares when I returned from the ironing board (which is at the other side of the house?)  I backtracked my steps several times, I folded a load of laundry, I cleaned up my cutting board, I even checked the study, the phone in the kitchen, the desk, and the bathroom. It's not there. So now I have a nine patch that cannot be sewn together because it is missing the center left square. And the remnant of fabric I have left to create a new one?  It's .5" too small. So I guess either tomorrow or Thursday I...

Well, my day is now 1/2 over (2/3 over if you take into account I'm playing taxi for someone tonight), and only 1 of the 3 things on my to do list are done. But that's okay...because I spent a good thirty minutes on youtube discovering that I am not the first, nor will probably be the last to have "leggy" tomato seedlings, and that they come about from too much heat and not enough light and that all the young people making videos have never done this before, so they're only transplanting/fertilizing based on what they've read online and not because they actually know what they're talking about...Yeah...quite the bummer. And Bobby and I have chatted about non-consequential matters (he laughed at my picks for the Sweet Sixteen and championship game...I've never made a bracket before) while I semi-cleaned off the kitchen table, which is a daily and losing battle. Meanwhile the sunshine beckons me outside to finish pruning the grapevines, but knowing...

The most incredible and bizarre thing happened this past month...Bass Pro Shops opened in Cary.  Yes, you read that right. Gander Mountain opened in Morrissville last month, and now a Bass Pro Shops in Cary. I recognize that Cabala's is coming to Garner next year and this area is centrally located in the state, near the lakes, between the mountains and the ocean, so it's smack dab perfect for multiple sporting stores. But for those of you who don't live around here, Cary has often been called the C ontainment A rea for R elocated Y ankees. Before I proceed any further, I enjoy shopping and eating in the town of Cary and am impressed with the diversity in buildings, although like many people, I find the lack of store signs and directional signs most annoying and find it hard to get from place to place there without written directions. I also LOVE how wheelchair accessible its buildings are, which is a far cry from the town of Garner. When you think of a person from Cary, you...

A friend of mine recently loaned me 8 books by author Jennifer Chiaverini...all quilting novels. I didn't pick them up the first week, as there was simply too much going on, but by the 2nd weekend I was exhausted and in need of a resting break (as opposed to a nap).  I know this is crazy to many people, but to me there's nothing more restful than to totally lose yourself in a book. Non-fiction and devotional books are not the genres where I can totally lose myself, and while books like the Hunger Games or Jodi Piccoulti are good, they're not exactly restful reading to me.  All that to say, I intended to read for three hours, and almost three days later I finished the third book in the series. I can resonate with one of the main characters, even though I am nothing like her. She hates her sister's quilting (from the past and both currently looking at her old quilts) because her points in triangles are often chopped off, her seams don't totally line up, and her fini...

On Sunday mornings we've combined all three kids' classes for the first 5-10 minutes to work on a song, Only a Boy Named David. The middle of the chorus is "and round and round and round and round and round and round and round...." and my 4th-6th graders love to make fun of that (AND sing it over and over and over...even after the younger classes have gone). And that's how a I feel about gardening.  Every year, by the end of June, I'm hating myself and wishing I had NOT planted a garden. And every year, by the end of December/first of January, I start thinking about what I could plant where and what I'd like to have. Then by the first of February I see a seed catalogue or get an announcement from a nursery online...and there I go again. round and round and round... So here we are mid-March, and 3 of the 4 tomato seed sets I've planted are sprouting  (whoohoo!), and I'm still waiting on the peppers. Of course, it's not even been a week, so ...

Back in the late '90s, even those of us who had cheap cameras didn't take a lot of pictures, especially of every day events. Film and developing costs money. Money that if we did have, we'd much rather spend on something fun than a piece of paper to tape to the wall of our locker or stick in a photo book. CHS Class of '91 lost another classmate this weekend. I pulled out our senior yearbook and looked through our senior section, reminisced a little, but only one person had a photo to post, and she took the most pictures of anyone in our class. As much as I dislike cell phones, especially smart phones, and the rudeness they bring out in people, I do think it's neat that today's generation can easily capture a moment or a memory, and pull it up years later. Before we marched out the night of our graduation, our principal told us to pause and slowly look around at everyone, that it might be the last time we saw a classmate, that even if we had reunions every 5 ...

I'm sure if you searched twitter you could find pictures of all the car quilts, the gorgeous applique  quilts (I did take one of an all Black @ White Baltimore Album style quilt, but my hands were too shaky and the pic was way too blurry to save...a big problem with my larger camera), and the theme/statement quilts. I thought I took photos of several landscape quilts, but if I did, I can't find them on my little memory card. But below is a quilt that I absolutely loved. Made as a wedding quilt for a Jewish couple, I was mesmerized by every single detail...and this quilt was full of them. The oak tree represented the bride, and the other Australian tree represented the groom, who was from Australia.      At the bottom in each corner, there was an applique bird representing their state/province.  And the wedding date...  I love how using three shade of fabrics on the roots gave the tree dimension. From a distance, you can almost feel the hole in t...

This quilt was one of the many crowd stoppers. There seems to be two different types of modern quilting: the 3D geometric shapes and the no pattern anything goes style (which really isn't modern, as groups were doing that during the Civil War).  I don't know how many quilters went up to the tag to read the name, artist, and pattern while I was waiting to take the picture, only to step back with a baffled look, shake their head, then walk on by. The reason?  It's an original pattern that a scientist/quilter created.  Normally (but not always) you see patterns like these created by males, often former engineers, who either retired or lost their job due to downsizing, and took up quilting after pestering their wife or Mom who was a quilter. After all, quilting does involve shapes and math. But this lady wrote up her description full of large words that no simple person uses, but basically saying she had to figure out a way to curve the pieces at different degrees to make th...

I didn't take a whole lot of photos as I did my first year, but it wasn't because the quilts weren't impressive. One, I had my large camera (my small one is currently not working), and two, the exhibits were quite crowded. And as my collection of quilt photos have grown, I've not felt the need to photograph quilts that are great as much, but now just try to capture the ones that have things I'd like to learn or try.     From a distance, this quilt/wall hanging looked just like a piece of art.  An up close of the man's sleeve. You know how they always tell you to press you fabric flat before quilting? Not here! The wrinkles, quilted into the backing, give dimension and texture to the man's jacket, and the offset lines create the look of a bended arm.  How do you make a napkin pop when it's simply white fabric on white fabric? Not only wrinkle the napkin fabric, but quilt two different layers of gray see-through material underneath to crea...

Tonight as the wind blows, I'm reminded of the bitter cold wind and the snow flurries the days we were in Richmond, VA.  The last day of our history part of the trip, we drove to Cold Harbor. Bobby's great-grandfather had six older brothers who fought in the Civil War. Three of them never came home, and one of them died at the Battle of the Cold Harbor. Below he's braving the elements to read one of the signs. You can tell by the grimace on his face that he is VERY cold. By this point in the war, soldiers have learned a little more about fighting, and have ceased some of their face to face combat and have started digging trenches with wood supports. In the pictures above and below, you can see the remains of the CSA trenches. Whether the farmers were unable to remove them or decided it wasn't worth the time and effort is unknown, but this area was not farmed again. Nearby farms that did not have trenches on them found that if they ever dug too deep, they'd...

I still have two more Richmond posts to write, but today my heart and thoughts are in Asia. I guess by now everyone has seen the reports on social media coming from North and South Korea. Sometimes it seems that I focus on trivial matters in the Christian world - how to get silly boys to listen in class at church, how to respond lovingly but truthfully to hostile comments on FB, how to find balance between people always needing/wanting something and living my own life...and these 33 people are facing the ends of their lives just for living out their faith. What would be the first thoughts on my mind in the morning if I lived in North Korea?  Would I wrestle with the reality of never getting a break from being a caregiver the first 1.5 hours of every morning, or would I wrestle more with whether or not my husband and I should continue having devotions (even owning a Bible in NK is grounds for a lifetime of imprisonment, if not execution)?  A simple act that I take for grante...

Briefly changing time periods, we stopped visiting Civil War Era sites, and switched to the Revolutionary War. When Patrick Henry and others were trying what to do with ongoing issues with England, their group was dismissed, making it treason for them to meet and discuss political matters without being called back into session. Richmond was the nearest location to Williamsburg (the then capitol) that had a place big enough for everyone to meet. The Pastor of St. John's Episcopal church agreed to let them use their building for the meeting.  It was here where self-trained lawyer Patrick Henry ended his speech with "Give me liberty or give me death." Our tour guide in the church that has been expanded three times from the original building.  I found some of the original pews most interesting.  All the newer pews are built to match, though not as tall as these. The doors were placed around each seating area as there was no heat in the day. Families brought heating...

Richmond homes, their styles, closeness in proximity, and constructional materials, reminded me a lot of Washington, DC. It was too cold to walk the streets and enjoy the views, but I did manage to snap a few pictures from the van window.  One of the things I love about old homes is the turrets, as pictured above. When I was a  child, my younger sister and I used to say we wanted to live in a house that had one so we could have a round bedroom. Now, I realize how impractical that would be, but I would love to actually go inside a house that had one just to see how they decorate the rooms.  Old churches, especially those with bell towers, are also a fascination for me. Most of the old churches in downtown Richmond were stone with gorgeous stained glass windows. If I had to live in a city, I'd like to live across the street from an old beautiful church. This is not a great shot, as I was trying to capture the different styles on the same street (at least 4 gro...

The Museum of the Confederacy in Richmond, VA will be moving its artifacts into a new museum (combining with another group). The White House of the Confederacy, as seen below, and ten steps away from the museum will remain open. After visiting, we understood the need to relocate. You can see Virginia's Commonwealth University surrounding the location. Since the university has expanded it's medical center, dwarfing the museum and historical house, visitors to the site have dropped more than 50%. For history lovers, it was a great place to visit. Displays were organized by time, but also included a lot of personal information, including excerpts from diaries and letters. Another museum that medical history lovers would enjoy is on Broad Street, shown below. We visited there on our last day. While cold and windy, there wasn't snow flurries that morning, and the sun was shining. 2/3 of the way up the elevator/stair lift, it started smoking and then quit. Bobby was stuc...

Well, I wrote two posts, complete with pictures, and attempted to post them last week, but either the hotel wifi wasn't strong enough or google was having problems...neither posted and neither saved as a draft.  And today, after I don't know how many attempts, I've only been able to load one photo. So...here's the first photo from a VA welcome center.  I think this is the first time I've ever seen a playground at a rest area, much less a welcome center. We both thought it was great.  Kids need to be able to play and stretch while traveling.  I know I certainly would have enjoyed this as a child during a stop. So hat's off to Virginia for providing a quality rest area (including a family bathroom).