Happy New Year to All

The New Year's celebration was no different than most.  Ethan and I sat up and watched the ball drop with Dick Clark...boy is he looking old but still going strong after his stroke.  The last couple years Ben has run the 6 mile midnight New Year's run.. He got home about 2:30am.  Then he got up and went back for the 10am  morning 6 mile run. Ethan went with him this time.. They hit the mall and brought home Cinnamon rolls from Cinnabon. We only induldge once or twice a year. They are too rich to have more often.

The good thing about today is...I still have tomorrow off. So a little relaxing today. Laundry is done except the dress shirts and folding so I can still relax, watch a movie or two and fold.  Monday Ben had to work but only until about 1 so he can be home to watch the Ducks in the Rose Bowl.. I will be in my quilt room..I'll still know what's going on because he isn't very quiet when he watches. The dogs, especially Tootsie comes up with me..she doen't like yelling and he can get quite excited.

  Whether I'm sewing or just telling how my week went, I'm going to try and update my blog weekly.  Why have one if you don't use it right!

So everyone have a great first day for the New Year.

busy holiday vacation

Well, this year for my Christmas vacation I sort of took it easy.  I just kicked back and rested my feet and did a little sewing.  I wanted to do some quilting and it's nice to sew during the day and show some progress quickly.  We go to Barnes and Noble Saturday mornings off and on. We usually pick up a few magazines and sit and have a coffee. It is just to expensive to buy them all so I can check them out and if I run across any I really like I buy it.  I've tried to be really choosy. I found one a couple months ago and another a couple weeks ago.   I made two small wall hanging from patterns .. One for Christmas and the other Valentines day.  

the Dreidel Delight was from the McCall's Quilting Nov/Dec 2011 issue. We aren't Jewish but I've always wanted to make one and just never found one I liked. I love the blues and it was a pretty simple pattern. We put up all kinds of holiday stuff at work.  I have a couple Jewish co-workers so thought this might be nice next year so we could all enjoy the holiday..

This one I recently found in McCall's Quilting Jan/Feb 2012.  This is one of my favorite magazines, Quiltmaker is one of the others. Thought it would be fun to make. What was a first for me was that you put it all together including the machine quilting and binding. Then you put the Hearts and stem. I always thought it would be a great way to put a wall hanging together.  It would be so much easier when you are doing the background quilting. Instead of quilting up to the pattern, stopping and going to the next line.  I think I'm going to try this with my next wall hanging if possible. No one sees the back so except to read the label the extras stitching won't matter.

This is an up close shot of the heart. The little hearts are double sided and attached down the center..sort of like butterflies..  It was a lot of fun.  The back is the same color as the border squares.    Making the wall hanging over my Christmas vacation was fun..Usually I don't get to anything I had planned.. this one was a success..

I also wanted to go to a couple movies. During the day it's a little cheaper but only managed to see one and it was great.  War Horse. I was a little sad in parts but it was done so well.

Chirstmas is over

This was our Christmas tree this year. I decided I didn't want one as big as before. With the fireplace on one side and the girls bench on the other it really squishes the corner. It was still a nice Douglas fir, almost 6 foot tall.  Would you believe we bought it at our local hardware store, Jerry's for $9.94....funny but that was the price of the wreath for the door too.  We've bought our tree there for the last 3 years and they have been beauties and not cost less than $20 dollars.  What's nice is, is it is right next door to Walmart where Ben has his optomety practice so the kids and I drive over and meet him after work.  We make it a family thing...and it's fun. Funny thing about this one is that it fit cross ways in the back of the KIA instead of on top..we definitely went compact this year.

Our Christmas was pretty good.  After we went light looking we put the Christmas Vacation movie in and had fun opening the presents.. Ethan started to hand out the presents and Chase went crazy. She is a paper nut. As soon as he set the package down in front of Cassie, Chase ran over and snatched the bow off and had it in pieces in a heartbeat.  We decided to give the girls two presents first thing.. They are hilarious watching them open them.. 

The big box to the left of the tree was for Ben.. I couldn't find anything else to wrap it in so I just took a big box... It was a big can of Almond Rocha. Of course it was on the bottom so when he opened the box all he pulled out was paper..lots of paper.  They all know, just because it's a big box doesn't mean the gift if big.. Keeps them guessing and makes gifts under the tree look like more than there really is. 

I made out pretty good. I received a pretty blue table cloth, ornament and a bar of chocolate with hazelnuts from my friend in Germany. Ben gave me speakers for my TV (it's a small flat screen but it sounded so tinnie, not is sounds great) and a T-shirt folder. We watched The Big Bang theory and saw Sheldon folding his shirts with this neat folder thing.  Since I have a tone of T-shirts to fold, told Ben I wanted one of those. So the silly man went on-line and found one.. of course it had a section that was of other things people bought too.  I've got a big basket of cloths to fold this weekend so I'm hoping to try it out.  Cassie and Ethan went to Brush Fire and made me a bowl and a tea cup and saucer.

Cassie had made me a really neat bowl with a pour spout and handle a couple years ago and I loved it but it was broken this summer.. She tried to make me another but they didn't have it anymore so she did the bowl instead.  It looks big but it's really just the right size. Not sure if you can read the bottom but the plate says Moose 2011 and the cup Mama.. He even painted the moose by hand.  Ethan also gave me a mini moose pillow. I'm sure you've seen the commercials of the big pillows. you just unhook the Velcro and it flattens out from an animal to a pillow. The little moose is so soft and cute..  I have to tell them to stop giving me stuffed moose's, I'm running out of places to put them.. but they are so cute..

I fixed a pork roast for Christmas dinner and it turned out really good. Cassie made a Chocolate silk pie for desert..very rich but oh so yummy.  It was a really nice quiet Holiday..

Christmas routines....

I used to go crazy and start putting up my Christmas stuff Thanksgiving weekend. My mom gave me all kinds of hand made ornaments that I hung all over the walls, decked out any flat surface and went nuts on just one tree. As the kids got older some of the hand made ones stayed in the box and we didn't have nearly as many flat surfaces...the tree however has always been the high point. When we acquired Tootsie, the flat surfaces were kept clear of anything low enough we thought she might like to take down and play with. My mom gave us a set of musical lights a year or two before Ethan was born. We have put them and at least one other strand on our tree, depending on the size, every year since.. Ethan will be 19 in April and the music and lights still work. Don't know if we have ever replace a light either...it just keeps working year after year. Of course I'm really careful to put them back in the box each year too.


This year we didn't get as big of a tree, maybe reaches 6 ft but it's not as big around as usual. They will put the lights on today and then we'll decorate to night. With a fireplace the house stays pretty warm and the tree dries out quickly so we don't put it up the beginning of the month anymore. I'm not quite as nuts as my mom though. When she decorated the tree everything had to be in the right place plus she put the tinsel on one strand at a time so it didn't look shoddy.. to top it off, she took all the tinsel off one strand at a time and saved it year after year...even though the box was probably only about 15cents.. I remember buying them as Cassie was growing up for a quarter. I think I bought two last year for 79 cents each....they are harder to find each year. If Cassie is over when we decorate I let her and Ethan put the balls on and then I put the tinsel..usually a few strands at a time.. by the time it looks like all is good, I start tossing the rest, a few at a time, towards the top.. this year I think it's short enough to do it all the same..no tossing.. the last few trees have been close to 7 feet tall and I'm only 5'2".

I'm off the 22nd through the 28th for vacation. Not going anywhere just resting. I'm hoping I can get the presents wrapped Thursday or Friday and not be scrambling Christmas eve afternoon. I can't put them under the tree if we are going to be gone because I'm afraid of what the girls will do.. Chase loves wrapping paper. We open our gifts Christmas Eve after going out Christmas light looking..dogs too. Then we come home put on National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation while we open the presents. Of course Santa brings a couple things the next morning. Since Cassie has a kitty she won't be staying the night this year.. She doesn't want to leave Gus alone and screw up his routine. I was thinking of having a Christmas breakfast...ya know eggs, hash browns, bacon, toast. Something we don't normally do but getting everyone up and here would be interesting. 

This year we are having a Pork Roast for Christmas dinner. They wanted something different this year besides the usual Ham.  We will still have mashed potatoes, roasted carrots (Cassie fixes these),  Ambrosia fruit salad with marshmallows, cinnamon applesauce, rolls of some kind.  Cassie is going to make her Pumpkin Cake, very good.  Thought I'd make Ben his mincemeat pie too. He's the only one who likes it so I just make a small one for him.

As the kids have gotten older the Christmas traditions have changed and will probably change a little more with Ethan in College. Right now he is going to the University of Oregon in the Architecture program.  He has loved this experience of living in the dorm.  He did get really lucky and get into a freshman dorm with a great group of kids. He's made a lot of friends.  Cassie has her own place across town and loves it. With Ethan and Cassie not home, enjoying their new grown-up lives, it is just Ben, the girls and me, I don't have the desire to go crazy with my decorations anymore.  We still decorate the outside but even that has changed. We didn't put up the icicles and have only put up my moose, candy canes and the ropes. It still looks nice and you can see it coming down the hill towards home. Life does go on and changes all the time.

If You Want....

If you want someone who will eat whatever you put in front of him and never say it's not quite as good as his mother's… adopt a dog.


If you want someone always willing to go out, at any hour, for as long and wherever you want... adopt a dog.

If you want someone who will never touch the remote, doesn't care about football, and can sit next to you as you watch romantic movies... adopt a dog.

If you want someone who is content to get on your bed just to warm your feet and whom you can push off if he snores... adopt a dog.

If you want someone who never criticizes what you do, doesn't care if you are pretty or ugly, fat or thin, young or old, who acts as if every word you say is especially worthy of listening to, and loves you unconditionally, perpetually… adopt a dog.

BUT, on the other hand, if you want someone who will never come when you call, ignores you totally when you come home, leaves hair all over the place, walks all over you, runs around all night and only comes home to eat and sleep, and acts as if your entire existence is solely to ensure their happiness .......then adopt a cat!

In Memory of Cleo

 This is Cleo. She was almost 13 years old when she passed away.  She used to go rafting with her family and loved it. she was a really pretty Lab.

As it happened, I had a lot of the Lab fabric left so it went perfect.

the back is red fleece with black paw prints. The poem was a favorite so I included it in the label..

Linda's finished quilt

I know it's been a while since I last posted but the finishing took a while. It ended up 97 by 115. It was to big to pin at home so I had to take it in to my office and use two of the big tables to lay it out. Ethan showed up after I got it all laid out and started pinning. We pinned for about 3 hours...that's a lot of pins.

Because it's so huge, I wasn't able to do all the machine quilting but I did do all the straight stitching to hold everything down, plus the binding. Linda will have to do the rest of the cross stitch in the center.

the quilt has 30, 16 1/2 inch blocks. It was so big that Ben and Ethan couldn't hold the whole thing up, so we folded it in half and I took the picture of them holding it up in front of the garage. It was hugh. It should fit my sisters queen bed with no problem. She didn't know what it looked like except from the couple pictures already posted or what other colors I was using.

She was really happy with the final results.