The Traditional Princess

You are generous, graceful, and practical with both
feet planted firmly on the ground. You tend to
be a little on the old-fashioned side. You
value home, hearth, and family life and love to
be of service to others.

Role Models: Snow White, Maid Marian

You are most likely to: Discover a hidden talent
for spinning straw into gold.


What Kind of Princess are You? - Beautiful Artwork (Original Music is BACK!!!)
brought to you by Quizilla

Watching the stupids flock

This morning, I had a brief feeling of superiority and smugness. Some of you know about my pantry-stocking antics and how hard it's been to build it up from nothing. Now, it is usually well filled with a variety of foodstuffs so trips to the grocery are for spoilables and minor stock-ups. Or as in this morning's case, to fill a sick kiddo's craving for fudge bars. I ran to Aldi's for said bars and found the store packed with folks who were doing some mad Thanksgiving shopping. As if the holiday were just invented yesterday and without warning, they were expected to host a feast for 20. Give me a break! Holidays come once a year and I see no reason to be caught unaware if you plan right. I bought our turkey MONTHS ago on sale and stuffed it into the upright freezer at my father's. I've been drying bread for stuffing along the way, bought brown and serve rolls at the bread store and froze them, have cases (literally) of veggies in the pantry along with the traditional fixin's. We are ready. It felt so awesome to stand in line with my measley few items and know I was ready, that if it weren't for this bug infected us all, I wouldn't even darken their door for at least a week more.

I'm also feeling very happy. I finally won a Rainbow Sweeper on ebay! Hubster bought me a used one back when E was small but we bought it from an unreliable, non-Rainbow dealer who couldn't repair things properly and ultimately, the sweeper died a slow and painful death. It was over 30 yrs old when I bought it though. The new one is newer and I cannot wait for it to arrive. My favorite thing about it is that it will actually clean the air in your home. Just set it up, leave off the hose and the exhaust cover and let it run. It's so neat to watch the dust particles literally get sucked out of the air. A few weeks with one of these, even if you just sweep the floor with it, and the actual dusting time is cut way down. I hate to dust. I'd rather go through another barely-numb c-section than to dust, that's how much I hate doing it. I just cannot wait for the housecleaning fun to begin.

Yes, Virginia, I have a turkey

It's that time of year. My favorite holiday of all...TURKEY DAY. Why do I love T-day so much? Simply put, I love to cook a feast. Once, years ago, just days away from a scheduled C-section, I hosted Hubster's entire family (the OH based ones). Something like 50. No catering, no one was asked to bring a single dish. This year, it will be just the 5 of us..my father may show up at some point but I always save him a plate no matter what. Hubster is fighting off a lung infection, E and I are battling nasty colds so we decided to keep things small. IF you can call a 20 pound bird small. Everything else is here, waiting to be prepped as well. We'll be eating left-overs until sometime in Dec, I'm sure. lol.

Finally got Athena her free motion foot so we can do some serious quilting. YIPPEEE!! I spent a large part of this afternoon practicing, enjoying her melodious hum and the soothing vibes she was giving off. I may try and tackle one of the crib quilts I've shared sometime this week. I did find that the purchase of some quilter's finger tips really helped improve my work. Cute little things really. Red, rubber-ish with nubs on one side. I could think of other uses for them but will refrain from being dubbed a 'naughty' girl by all blogland.

The neighbors (the Tomato Bandit and his lovely wife) are grandparents again. Little Corbin was born last week and is such a cutie. I whipped up a pair of wee socks from this pattern: baby socks Scroll down a bit because it's a freebie pattern for ordering the yarn. In my excitement of a new baby close by, I forgot to snap a picture of them before they went to warm Master C's little piggies. Of course, they were a beautiful blue(#70 on the color chart). I have a wrap sweater in the works for him as well, in a mint green. The pattern called for 2 skeins for the sweater but I really think I will be able to squeeze out the smallest size with only 1. He's a rather tiny guy at 7 pounds and something so I think the chosen size will do well for him until I can whip up another.

The doc bumped up my Lexapro last week and I think it's working. My joints are not nearly as achy as they were, but my muscles are still a bit ouchy at times. Am I surpised? Yes, quite frankly, I am. Normally when I have even a cold, I hurt so badly I want to just hide in bed. I forced myself out this weekend to accomplish some Christmas shopping and pick up some groceries despite the cold with wind chills in the teens. I survived!

I wish you all a full stomach and no heartburn this week.

How do they know this stuff?

You Should Get a MFA (Masters of Fine Arts)

You're a blooming artistic talent, even if you aren't quite convinced. You'd make an incredible artist, photographer, or film maker.

What Advanced Degree Should You Get?

Hmm...how'd they know?

Which flock do you follow?

this quiz was made by alanna

I'm seriously addicted to these goofy online quizzes. My personal favorite has been making the rounds lately in blogland:

Your Birthdate: October 18

You are a cohesive force - able to bring many people together for a common cause. You tend to excel in work situations, but you also facilitate a lot of social gatherings too. Beyond being a good leader, you are good at inspiring others. You also keep your powerful emotions in check - you know when to emote and when to repress. Your strength: Emotional maturity beyond your years Your weakness: Wearing yourself down with too many responsibilities Your power color: Crimson red Your power symbol: Snowflake Your power month: September

What Does Your Birth Date Mean?

Scarey, huh? I suspect my "sis" out west (who is blogless) has once again planted spy cams about the homestead or paid the girls to help somehow. It's a long running gag between us so don't worry if you were lost. ;o)

Creating a little FO lust....well, maybe

Yes, another small quilt pieced in under a day. Thanks in part to super easy directions from Quilts For Kids to Love and to Hubster's color layout help. He may turn out to be a fiber artist yet. LOL. The pic really does not show the loveliness of this quilt...the center blocks feature girlie looking slippers and I used a coordinating fabric for one section of the striped blocks along with a purple and an apricot-ish one. Of course, this quilt top is already tucked into a box heading to TLL. Now that this latest top has been pieced, I have a mild case of startitis. Sure, I have a baby afghan on the needles, again for TLL, but I want to give some time to Athena and sewing. (Athena is my Bernina 160 Virtousa)

I do have a knitting FO to share at some point if E ever decides to model it for me. Her long-awaited, top-down raglan in Fushcia Lion Brand Wool Ease Sport. She picked the color with a slight push from moi one day at Tuesday Mornings. They had a 3 pack of it for under $8. Can't complain about a cheapo, handknit wool sweater now can we? The sweater took less than 2 complete skeins...the remaining partial may become a hat and mittens while the other unused is going to be up for sale either on ebay or something. I have no desire to work with that hot pinkish color any more. Make me feel cross eyed after a while.

The weather here is a bit scarey today. Very early this morning, we had a severe thunderstorm pass through and that just set the tone for the day: gray, windy, cloudy and rainy. Now we're under a tornado warning until 10pm est. November is NOT tornado weather here folks. We should be gearing up for either just rain or maybe snow. Oh well. The drab day allowed me to languish in bed off and on with a book, sort through fabrics and try to come up with a plan for the next piecing project.

Which is a bit hard for me to do...I have two beautiful stacks of good fabric from Duck that I'm itching to use but neither is saying what they want to become. One is the Gracie line by Judie Rothermel, which I just adore. Those 1930's repros get me every time but Gracie is a bit tall for every block I
thinkI want to do and I really do not want to fuss with resizing the blocks because then the others will seem out of scale, I think. I've toyed with doing something ultra simple like a nine patch and using Gracie as either the outer border or as the solid blocks between the nine patches. Maybe that's what I'll start tonight. Seeing it in print makes it seem a lot more doable than just mulling it over in my mind. Call me crazy.

At some point, I will be working on updating my favorite links, so bear with me as I tinker, this template stuff confuses me a bit. Who'd thunk it? LOL.

I have to thank you all for your kind, encouraging comments of late. I used to respond to each comment personally via email and hope to be able to return to that at some point in the future. I deeply appreciate the kindness you show, the prayers you offer and the fact that you find something here worth reading time after time. I am blessed by each of you. Thank you.

Sleepless nights are beginning to drag me way down. I have been exhausted for so long and now find myself waking up after a toss-n-turn session almost every night. I hate our mattress. Give me back my old waterbed any day! I keep trying to convince the Hubster to consider returning to the waves in the bedroom but no dice. Hrmph! At least he's kind enough to let me nap in the afternoons when I have time.

Last weekend's piecing fest was appearently a one-time enagement. Boo-hiss. This weekend was spent entertaining the MIL one afternoon and sleeping today. R wanted to get her very own, brand new sewing machine so we trotted off to The Gates of Hell to pick up the one she wanted. She picked a beaut, that's for sure. This afternoon, she finished piecing a quilt top (pictures will surface at some point) and a drawstring bag. Not bad for a dyslexic kid who still struggles with directions at times. I'm proud of her and all her many talents...I think she could be a wonderful costume designer for the theatre industry personally.

As for personal crafting, I've finished two baby sweaters that have been languishing in the pile for most of the summer. Well, finished except for buttons. I'll have to pick some up the next time I hit Joann's. I've also sent a baby afghan to the frog pond. Hubster and I mulled it over and reached the decision that a wee one's fingers or toes might become caught in it. I started another one and have it roughly a TENTH of the way completed already. Notice: a tenth. Not much really but given how much my body hurts, it sure seems like a lot.

The lack of posting comes from the combination of no energy and a slow setting depression. I just cannot find anything to be funny about. No, I can but believe me, few other people would find humor in the lack of oomph to brush your teeth, the 20 minute battle to get dressed some mornings or the million other complaints which are newly revealed to me with each new ache. One of the things I am finding most bothersome and disturbing is how painful it is to hold a book. I know, I could do the whole book on cd thing but honestly, that sucks the joy of reading right out for me. The crafting issues are not so bothersome now that R has a machine of her own...today was very "live through her" in a way in that her needing just my guidance scratched the "I need to create" itch for me. Am I am naive enough to think that will always work? No, not by any stretch of the imagination. Am I relishing it now? Most definitely. She and I have a plan in place to work on getting projects staged for days when we both have time to sew together. She enjoys piecing quilts for charity and I find doing so is an excellent way to teach her concepts she'd fuss at otherwise. So we have a plan and will work on it this week as I feel up to it. I've found that if I knit until my elbow starts to hurt a smidge, I can stop and still feel like sewing later. Duh...only took me a while to figure that out.

Despite not feeling up to par, I managed to accomplish a bit of piecing over the weekend. 2 bits of piecing actually and boy did doing that make me feel happier! Here is my favorite work of late: Vital stats: fabric was a bundle I picked up at Miller's for a mere $4, pattern is a meshing of one from a book and something that just came to me while piecing the colored blocks. Dainty yet whismical and cute, perfect for a baby girl.

And next is a semi-far out piece taking from a book. The center of the blocks is a fabric I love, it's the curtains in my laundry room. When I saw it, I knew I had to make a quilt with it. I tend to stick it darker colors if left to my own devices: greens, burgandies, tans, beiges, etc. This piece just screamed for brights and given the dready fall weather we've seen lately, it was just what the quilt doctor ordered. Vital stats: Fabrics from Joann's. Both quilt tops will be jumping into a box heading to Touching Little Lives, an Ohio based charity for newborns.

In fibro news, I notice that if I do not make time to nap in the afternoon, I feel much, much worse. I started back into adding a Super B vitamin complex and folic acid into my daily routine. Not sure if they really help but I
think I feel better when I take them. The Maxlatt for migraines works wonders for me, which is a blessing. I hate headaches, period.

Edited to clarify: I mixed up my notes about the pictures. I'm sure you all are smart enough to figure that out. LOL