Happy Thanksgiving!

Things are going a bit slowly preparing for the holiday.

I've been down with an MS episode and Brownie has an infected paw....we've both spent a lot of time on the couch!

Which by the way has my favorite comfy-quilt...wool and corduroy made in 1950.

This will keep your warm no matter how cold it gets outside!  That is important since it is rainy and cold outside....

Brownie is having her paw operated on today...hoping it will heal now...

I'm going through recipes for the holidays.  It is fun to remember where each of them came from...pumpkin pie from my hairdresser in Atlanta, Pecan pie from the Quincy Antique show, New Orleans dressing from my Maintenance NCOIC, and Stollen from my neighbors in Berlin.  Most of these are from the 1980's!  A good way to remember friends...

Late and tired..Happy Thanksgiving

Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving.  Thanksgiving was a success at our house.  Even with the short notice that I'd be cooking a large meal for many it went surprisingly well.  It did cut into my posting and quilting time but as I do not go out on "black Friday" I should be able to catch up today.

For those of you who have or work with children a question:  Is there a book or a comic that has school lockers in it?  My 8 year old grandson is obsessed with getting a grey school lock for Christmas!  Funny kid.   He couldn't find the perfect locker on the internet so I drew one for him based on his "specs."  Then gave him a box of crayons so he could decorate it.  "Wow," he said in disbelief, "this is as fun as an IPAD."  Who knew...wonder how long it had been since he used crayons!

We made a huge batch of waffles this morning...somehow by the time the plate made it to the table we were one short.  There are waffle crumbs behind the couch and Dobby's belly is dragging a bit...doesn't take Sherlock Holmes to figure that one out!  Heck, Dobby can barely fit in his basket...we may have to get a shoe-horn to get him out!

Flower gardens

Hope all of you in the U.S. are enjoying your long weekend.  Don't forget to take a minute to remember a fallen veteran...

The heat has pretty much driving me inside.  I did some gardening yesterday...that is if going to Lowes and buying some assorted pots of flowers and sticking them into the existing pots around the front door counts as gardening!

I did take some time to take photos...this Rose of Sharon bush has so many bees it sounds like the bush is alive!

On the subject of gardening I found my missing Grandmother's flower garden top.  It was one of those time that I knew if I just stopped looking it would turn up and there you go.

 I went into the closet to find a dress for an upcoming wedding and there the top was on a hanger with all my good clothes...whatever!  These tops like to play hide and seek a lot....don't you just love the fabrics in this to and how the maker "selectively cut" (fussy-cut for the quilters among us!) the stripes and the checks to make little hexagon frames.

It is still November....

Only a couple days after Thanksgiving and almost half the houses in my neighborhood are decorated for Christmas. Is it me or does that feel wrong?

Poor Macbeth is traumatized by it all. He is a sworn enemy of the inflatable snowmen (you know the kind that have a motor inside to keep them inflated and a light so they sort of glow...makes me think of the marshmallow giant in "Ghostbusters.") Then there are the mechanical deer whose heads bob up and down...Mac chooses to ignore them but I worry one of these days he'll have had enough - he'll slip his lead and we'll see him dragging one mangled mechanical deer down the driveway (the fact they are 10x his size has no bearing on the matter...he is a terrier remember!)

I am trying to clear away the autumn fabrics and found this Thankgiving one...been in my stash a long time. Not a lot of fabrics with printed in the USA on the selvage anymore.

Today I spent some time finishing up the Halloween quilt I started this year. I have been pulling some of the blacks and shirtings from the Halloween project box for the mystery quilt and it dawned on me I might need them for the H-project. (not that that has even happened to me before....whoops!) I think I am ok...all the half-squares are done and I only have to applique a couple more stars. I cut the fabric and am putting the whole thing somewhere safe (note to self - it is on the upper shelf of the spare bedroom closet.)

I have finished step two in the Bonnie's new mystery...I'll post my photos tomorrow. It was a quick step and my DH even helped take out the paper while we watched football last night. The paper is messy but the cats had fun with it! (With that read...really, messy!)

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Things I'm thankful for....the Diningroom is ready for the tablecloth and placesettings and of course the food! Do you have a "standard" for you Thanksgiving celebration? My DH insists on homemade pecan pie and New Orleans style dressing (has sausage, onion, peppers, mushrooms and apples...)

I finally gave up waiting for the painter/decorator to show up and went ahead and painted my front door yesterday...I am thankful it came out ok! (still have to do the frame but that is a post holiday project....)

And finally I am really thankful that I finished step one of Bonnie Hunter's mystery....

Home again...

We got back late last night (or was that early this morning?) from our California vacation. It was great seeing my DH's family but I have to say I am exhausted.In one week we visited San Jose, Lake Taho, San Francisco, and Carmel. A lot of territory with a lot of golfing and family get togethers. Fun but exhausting....
While walking the beach we came across this seal making his way back to the water...the bay was foggy every morning which made it possible for me to spend time on the beach!
And this hawk swooped past the deck every afternoon....

The weather was wonderfully cool...glad I missed the heat wave back here in Georgia the past week. The yard is a jungle that I will have to deal with later...where do those weeds come from and how do they get so tall in only ten days?

Giving Thanks

I hope everyone had a great holiday yesterday. Friends had us over for dinner so we didn't have to try and make a do with only a few pots and pan (honestly it would have been a restaurant holiday!) I did make a pecan pie (only one since I only have one pan unpacked) and a pan of "New Orleans" stuffing (I bought a new pan at Tuesday Morning....)

So it was a very minimal sort of holiday...I got a lot of rest which is good since the big shipment of furniture and "stuff" arrives on Monday. In some ways I am really excited for it to come...the computer is currently precariously perched on a cardboard box, the keyboard is on my lap and I am sitting on a borrowed folding chair. Yup, my shoulders will be grateful for our computer desk!

(Add to that grateful list a real bed...my body is getting too old to spend this many days on an airmattress!)

I have finished unpacking the boxes that were in storage while we were gone. About half of that has gone to the Goodwill. What was I thinking?! I did find a box of quilts! They are fine for their many months in the dark. I'll take some photos later today. The photo above is of some of the CW blocks that I made during my last months in the UK...They will be the first blocks up on my new design wall....

On a totally different but more quilty topic...is anyone else sort of disappointed by the quilt magazines right now? Books-a-million has a huge magazine section and it used to be I could almost always find a quilt magazine that I wanted to bring home. Last week I think I opened every issue and nada...not one. Most of them only had very simple (and not very interesting) quilt tops. What happened? Are they driving by the large graphic prints that are so popular right now? And another beef...just how many bag patterns do we need? They all sort of go together the same way don't they?

Boy does that sound grouchy...oh, well.